“Oh look, sweetie.” Mom taps the thick plastic encasing her menu. “They’ve got 600 locations across Japan—we can eat here every meal.”
She does a little dance in her chair as she opens the oversized menu. Slipping her glasses down her nose, she analyzes the photos of American breakfast classics and English descriptors. I force a smile and look across the aisle to another Formica table.
A family speaks rapid-fire Japanese and laughs amongst themselves. I try to pick out the few words I know, but I’m hopeless. The son knocks the daughter on the knuckles with his chopsticks, and their mother scolds him.
I imagined slurping noodles, shoulder to shoulder with Japanese people in Tsukiji, catching a fish at Zauo that the chef helps me prepare, having my drink poured for me by a laughing hostess in the Ginza district. I had not imagined this.
“Mom, I didn’t come to Japan to eat at Denny’s.”
“But it’s stunning honey, and did you see the drink bar? You can get pots of those flowery teas you like.”
I sigh and crack open my menu, scanning the Japanese options. They’re actually not bad—but I won’t tell her that.
Our waitress comes over and mom orders pancakes in a loud, slow voice, over-enunciating each syllable. The server doesn’t seem fazed, but I shrink down in my seat and flash her an apologetic smile. I order the miso soup and natto, ignoring my mother as she wrinkles her nose. She shuts her menu without further comment.
“Arigato,” I call after the waitress.
I text Kyle. All I’ve seen of Japan is the inside of a Denny’s… Are we sure I’m not adopted?
He sends me a bicep emoji. You got this babe.
I start typing a rebuttal, but Kyle sends another message before I can finish the thought. Now, hitch up your big girl pants and make some memories with your mother.
I click my phone off and wonder again what possessed me to buy two round-trip flights to Tokyo as a Mothers’ Day gift. We’ve never even spent a long weekend together since I moved out at 18, over ten years ago.
***
We leave the restaurant, still arguing over the tip. She doesn’t believe me that it’s rude to leave one. I unfurl a paper map and hide behind it, instead of using my phone.
“The gallery is three blocks this way.” I point east.
She asks if we can get a cab. I tsk but comply. I’m anxious to get to the gallery anyway. I bought the tickets for the shodo exhibit months ago, right after the plane tickets. The ensō display is getting rave reviews.
“Calligraphy? You want to go look at calligraphy?” Her brow was furrowed like the fields on the family farm. I only nodded, unable to explain it in a way she’d understand. “And what else is on the itinerary, a morse code museum?”
I was always a family anomaly. My parents smiled indulgently at the shōjo manga translations our small-town librarian ordered for me.
“Just a phase,” they murmured to each other.
They couldn’t hold their tongues when I minored in Japanese studies when I went off to UVic.
“Couldn’t you study something more useful?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know where we got her.” My dad shook his head, before heading back out to drive neat, even lines on his tractor.
***
Mom and I bicker again when I don’t tip the cab driver, but when we step into the gallery, we fall silent. Small clusters of people dot the open floor plan, and they're all hushed and reverent. The gallery is dim, and each work is individually lit, close, and warm.
“It’s like a church,” mom whispers. It’s a far cry from St. Monica’s Anglican parish, where we spent the Sundays of my childhood, but I let it slide. I point towards the ensō and begin walking towards them, without checking to see if she’s following.
They’re mesmerizing. Each is subtly different but connected, made individual by the angle of the bamboo brush and the pressure and speed it was guided across the pages. The artists’ burdens, hesitations, and state of mind can all be read in the single brush strokes.
Mom comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder. “Sure, I coulda drew them. It’s just circles.”
My eyes roll involuntarily, drawing an ensō, harsh and black. I see my mother’s eyes make a line for the floor.
“Only making a joke,” she mumbles and goes to find the bathroom.
***
We keep repeating our circular patterns too. She doesn’t understand the fuss over the cherry blossoms. I scowl. She hates the vegan meal at the Buddhist temple. I huff. She walks across tatami floors, oblivious to the arched eyebrows of staff as they scurry for a broom. I develop a twitch.
My face burns at the tea ceremony when she asks for a cup of hot water. She fishes a Tetley teabag out of her purse and plops it into the chawan tea bowl. The wooden whisk and green tea powder lay to waste at the side of her tray. I take my frustrations out on my tea, whisking it furiously. When I’m done, it doesn’t have sweet, frothy peaks the instructor describes. It’s flat and bitter.
The heat weighs down on us, adding to our misery. Our shirts stick to our skin.
“Can scarcely get a breath in me lungs,” mom complains to dad on her daily long-distance phone call from the hotel room. She’s parked in front of the AC unit with her arms akimbo. “Wouldn’t dare complain to herself though,” she murmurs, gesturing toward me with her eyes. “Takes everything right personal.”
***
It’s our seventh day and our seventh Denny’s. Mom gets the pancakes—again. She wrinkles her nose—again—when I order my seventh different dish, cod roe with spaghetti.
“Not for me,” she says.
We’re on the other side of the world, but a different environment can’t change how things are between us. Instead of replying, I bow my head to my phone and text Kyle. Three more days.
Look, I was going to wait until you got home but I’m sick of hearing you complain about your mom. My mom’s cancer is back.
I gasp.
“Kyle’s mom… Cancer…Sorry…”
I leave my mother to her pancakes and go outside to call Kyle. When I come back in, she doesn’t ask what's wrong, but she is more subdued. A pot of tea is waiting for me on the table. She rests her hand on mine and pours me tea with her free hand.
***
The next day, she orders a spring roll with her meal at Denny’s. “Take a picture of me for your father,” she holds it up as if it were a fish head, with her mouth open wide beside it. “He won’t believe it.”
It’s an olive branch. She’s trying. I send the picture to Kyle, and he sends back an emoji with heart eyes.
On our tenth and last day, we go to Mount Mitake in sauna-like conditions. I wanted to hike Mount Fuji but changed to this smaller peak with a cable car for her. I look longingly towards those climbing the steps as the railcar lurches and shudders up the incline. The hot air hits us in the face as we disembark, but it’s the last day and I want to make the most of it.
“I’m going to hike around a little before going to the shrine.”
“I’ll come too.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
It’s only a kilometer to the smallest peak, Mount Otake, but mom sounds like she is climbing a class five route. Her breath is laboured. She stumbles and swears, pushing her sweat-drenched hair out of her face with her clammy hands. I remind her that she can wait at the base.
The tension rises alongside the elevation.
We reach the pinnacle, but it’s crowded, and the air is hot without a whisper of a breeze. She collapses on a bench, sucking her water bottle empty, then turning it upside down, trying to shake out the last few droplets.
It’s hard to see the view between the clumps of tourists.
“Are you trying to put me in the hospital?” A joke with razor-sharp edges.
The tears I’ve been stockpiling all week roll down my flushed face. “Of course not. I’m trying to have a nice vacation with my mother. But apparently, that’s not possible.”
“You’re trying? What do you think I’ve been doing?” Tears streak her face too.
The ensō exhibit, the tea ceremony, the temples—my mother chose none of it. And I was always watching, waiting for her to make a mistake. Kyle’s situation comes back to me.
I offer her my water bottle, and she gulps from it between her sobs. I scrounge in my pockets for tissues. The tourists have given us a wide berth.
“If I’d known it was that easy to get rid of people, I’d have cried ages ago.” She laughs through her tears. I join in.
We take a selfie. Mist burns off between mountain peaks that stretch to the horizon behind us. Each is alike but unique and changing all the time. We drape our damp arms around each other, our underarms ringed with perspiration, and our eyes rimmed-red from crying. Sweat beads on our foreheads and our faces are puffy. But the picture is perfect. I text it to Kyle and Dad.
Mom wipes her brow and cups her hand over her eyes. She stares up at the intense white orb of the sun. “It looks like one of them ensō things you like.” Her eyes are like ensō too — wide, hopeful ones.
“Yeah, it kinda does.” I smile. “C’mon mom, if we rush, we can make it to Denny’s for the lunch menu.” I take her hand in mine and we pick our way down the trail together, towards the cable car for our journey down the mountain, and from there, towards home.
She does a little dance in her chair as she opens the oversized menu. Slipping her glasses down her nose, she analyzes the photos of American breakfast classics and English descriptors. I force a smile and look across the aisle to another Formica table.
A family speaks rapid-fire Japanese and laughs amongst themselves. I try to pick out the few words I know, but I’m hopeless. The son knocks the daughter on the knuckles with his chopsticks, and their mother scolds him.
I imagined slurping noodles, shoulder to shoulder with Japanese people in Tsukiji, catching a fish at Zauo that the chef helps me prepare, having my drink poured for me by a laughing hostess in the Ginza district. I had not imagined this.
“Mom, I didn’t come to Japan to eat at Denny’s.”
“But it’s stunning honey, and did you see the drink bar? You can get pots of those flowery teas you like.”
I sigh and crack open my menu, scanning the Japanese options. They’re actually not bad—but I won’t tell her that.
Our waitress comes over and mom orders pancakes in a loud, slow voice, over-enunciating each syllable. The server doesn’t seem fazed, but I shrink down in my seat and flash her an apologetic smile. I order the miso soup and natto, ignoring my mother as she wrinkles her nose. She shuts her menu without further comment.
“Arigato,” I call after the waitress.
I text Kyle. All I’ve seen of Japan is the inside of a Denny’s… Are we sure I’m not adopted?
He sends me a bicep emoji. You got this babe.
I start typing a rebuttal, but Kyle sends another message before I can finish the thought. Now, hitch up your big girl pants and make some memories with your mother.
I click my phone off and wonder again what possessed me to buy two round-trip flights to Tokyo as a Mothers’ Day gift. We’ve never even spent a long weekend together since I moved out at 18, over ten years ago.
***
We leave the restaurant, still arguing over the tip. She doesn’t believe me that it’s rude to leave one. I unfurl a paper map and hide behind it, instead of using my phone.
“The gallery is three blocks this way.” I point east.
She asks if we can get a cab. I tsk but comply. I’m anxious to get to the gallery anyway. I bought the tickets for the shodo exhibit months ago, right after the plane tickets. The ensō display is getting rave reviews.
“Calligraphy? You want to go look at calligraphy?” Her brow was furrowed like the fields on the family farm. I only nodded, unable to explain it in a way she’d understand. “And what else is on the itinerary, a morse code museum?”
I was always a family anomaly. My parents smiled indulgently at the shōjo manga translations our small-town librarian ordered for me.
“Just a phase,” they murmured to each other.
They couldn’t hold their tongues when I minored in Japanese studies when I went off to UVic.
“Couldn’t you study something more useful?” my mother asked.
“I don’t know where we got her.” My dad shook his head, before heading back out to drive neat, even lines on his tractor.
***
Mom and I bicker again when I don’t tip the cab driver, but when we step into the gallery, we fall silent. Small clusters of people dot the open floor plan, and they're all hushed and reverent. The gallery is dim, and each work is individually lit, close, and warm.
“It’s like a church,” mom whispers. It’s a far cry from St. Monica’s Anglican parish, where we spent the Sundays of my childhood, but I let it slide. I point towards the ensō and begin walking towards them, without checking to see if she’s following.
They’re mesmerizing. Each is subtly different but connected, made individual by the angle of the bamboo brush and the pressure and speed it was guided across the pages. The artists’ burdens, hesitations, and state of mind can all be read in the single brush strokes.
Mom comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder. “Sure, I coulda drew them. It’s just circles.”
My eyes roll involuntarily, drawing an ensō, harsh and black. I see my mother’s eyes make a line for the floor.
“Only making a joke,” she mumbles and goes to find the bathroom.
***
We keep repeating our circular patterns too. She doesn’t understand the fuss over the cherry blossoms. I scowl. She hates the vegan meal at the Buddhist temple. I huff. She walks across tatami floors, oblivious to the arched eyebrows of staff as they scurry for a broom. I develop a twitch.
My face burns at the tea ceremony when she asks for a cup of hot water. She fishes a Tetley teabag out of her purse and plops it into the chawan tea bowl. The wooden whisk and green tea powder lay to waste at the side of her tray. I take my frustrations out on my tea, whisking it furiously. When I’m done, it doesn’t have sweet, frothy peaks the instructor describes. It’s flat and bitter.
The heat weighs down on us, adding to our misery. Our shirts stick to our skin.
“Can scarcely get a breath in me lungs,” mom complains to dad on her daily long-distance phone call from the hotel room. She’s parked in front of the AC unit with her arms akimbo. “Wouldn’t dare complain to herself though,” she murmurs, gesturing toward me with her eyes. “Takes everything right personal.”
***
It’s our seventh day and our seventh Denny’s. Mom gets the pancakes—again. She wrinkles her nose—again—when I order my seventh different dish, cod roe with spaghetti.
“Not for me,” she says.
We’re on the other side of the world, but a different environment can’t change how things are between us. Instead of replying, I bow my head to my phone and text Kyle. Three more days.
Look, I was going to wait until you got home but I’m sick of hearing you complain about your mom. My mom’s cancer is back.
I gasp.
“Kyle’s mom… Cancer…Sorry…”
I leave my mother to her pancakes and go outside to call Kyle. When I come back in, she doesn’t ask what's wrong, but she is more subdued. A pot of tea is waiting for me on the table. She rests her hand on mine and pours me tea with her free hand.
***
The next day, she orders a spring roll with her meal at Denny’s. “Take a picture of me for your father,” she holds it up as if it were a fish head, with her mouth open wide beside it. “He won’t believe it.”
It’s an olive branch. She’s trying. I send the picture to Kyle, and he sends back an emoji with heart eyes.
On our tenth and last day, we go to Mount Mitake in sauna-like conditions. I wanted to hike Mount Fuji but changed to this smaller peak with a cable car for her. I look longingly towards those climbing the steps as the railcar lurches and shudders up the incline. The hot air hits us in the face as we disembark, but it’s the last day and I want to make the most of it.
“I’m going to hike around a little before going to the shrine.”
“I’ll come too.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
It’s only a kilometer to the smallest peak, Mount Otake, but mom sounds like she is climbing a class five route. Her breath is laboured. She stumbles and swears, pushing her sweat-drenched hair out of her face with her clammy hands. I remind her that she can wait at the base.
The tension rises alongside the elevation.
We reach the pinnacle, but it’s crowded, and the air is hot without a whisper of a breeze. She collapses on a bench, sucking her water bottle empty, then turning it upside down, trying to shake out the last few droplets.
It’s hard to see the view between the clumps of tourists.
“Are you trying to put me in the hospital?” A joke with razor-sharp edges.
The tears I’ve been stockpiling all week roll down my flushed face. “Of course not. I’m trying to have a nice vacation with my mother. But apparently, that’s not possible.”
“You’re trying? What do you think I’ve been doing?” Tears streak her face too.
The ensō exhibit, the tea ceremony, the temples—my mother chose none of it. And I was always watching, waiting for her to make a mistake. Kyle’s situation comes back to me.
I offer her my water bottle, and she gulps from it between her sobs. I scrounge in my pockets for tissues. The tourists have given us a wide berth.
“If I’d known it was that easy to get rid of people, I’d have cried ages ago.” She laughs through her tears. I join in.
We take a selfie. Mist burns off between mountain peaks that stretch to the horizon behind us. Each is alike but unique and changing all the time. We drape our damp arms around each other, our underarms ringed with perspiration, and our eyes rimmed-red from crying. Sweat beads on our foreheads and our faces are puffy. But the picture is perfect. I text it to Kyle and Dad.
Mom wipes her brow and cups her hand over her eyes. She stares up at the intense white orb of the sun. “It looks like one of them ensō things you like.” Her eyes are like ensō too — wide, hopeful ones.
“Yeah, it kinda does.” I smile. “C’mon mom, if we rush, we can make it to Denny’s for the lunch menu.” I take her hand in mine and we pick our way down the trail together, towards the cable car for our journey down the mountain, and from there, towards home.
Lindsey Harrington is an Atlantic Canadian writer. She was the 2021 recipient of the Rita Joe Poetry Prize and has had short stories published recently by Long Con Magazine, Off Topic Publishing, and the Icelandic Connection.
Use and/or duplication of any content on White Enso is strictly prohibited without express and written permission from the author and/or owner.
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