A bona fide update as month 9 comes to a close

On Sunday evening, as soon as I walked out of the gates of Fuchu Little League, slow, cold tears dripped from eyes. Part of me wanted to suppress them. The large negotiation that ensued when I stated I would walk home, rather than be driven, meant a fear nestled within me—at any moment, a Fuchu mother or coach would drive up beside me and insist that I take their offer of a car-ride home. Another part of me wanted to let the flood gates fly open and sob my way back to my homestay.

Half-suppressed tears began to flow as soon as I walked out of the gates. Within those gates, I am an assistant baseball coach (to some degree) for Fuchu Little League. My role often feels like it should be gaijin (foreigner) mascot or guest instead. This past weekend amplified the feelings that I am nothing more than I mascot or a guest.

We travelled to Hamamatsu in the south east of Japan for an overnight trip and multiple scrimmages against southern Little League teams. As soon as our hosts received the list of players and coaches and saw someone with the name Emily, the began to wonder. Then, I arrived. The team arrived, but it felt as I arrived separately and was never allowed to simply seem like a member of the team. Instead, I am the gaijin visiting coach.

Baseball runs from 7AM-6PM every Saturday and Sunday of the year.

No exaggerations.

So, the toils I share here of my experience only represent the smallest part of Fuchu’s Little League season. Meanwhile, I am wondering if I will survive the remaining time I’ve committed to this team. For two consecutive weekends, I have emerged from the 20-hour baseball weekends with tears running down my face. Now, on Friday, a Japanese holiday of Golden Week begins. While many families take this holiday to travel or relax, Fuchu families and coaches take it as the perfect extra practice time before our Summer Tournament.

At past times in my life, I played both baseball and softball for extended hours over the weekends. The hours were not as long, but it’s not the hours that do me in. It’s the lack of identity I have in the space that is Fuchu Little League, and it’s the spotlight that is constantly on me. It’s also the royal treatment I receive, which is exhausting and hard to endure.

It’s been hard to carve out a niche for myself in Fuchu’s intense practices regimens. I am one of seven coaches for 35 players, so truth is, there are almost always hands present to do lead and administer necessary tasks. My hands could do those tasks, but two things hold me back. There usually are other coaches present to do so, and if and when I do carve myself a niche, be it serving batting practice, or hitting fly balls, utter shock and awe ensues that, I, the female gaijin, am able to throw, bat, or do anything! This spotlight has elicited a fear within me that is crippling.

It means that the times I’ve been asked to throw batting practice on the field, rather than in the batting cage away from the spotlight, I have been unable to throw strikes. It’s both frustrating and embarrassing.

In conjunction with the constantly spotlight I occupy, the language barriers’ severity causes me intense alienation. One or two Dads at the ground speak English, but they are very tentative to accompany me and help translate. I think this roots in their respect for the coaches and the serious respect for hierarchy and authority that exists in Japanese culture. Thus, I am in a baseball environment, largely unable to communicate for every waking hour of every weekend I spend here.

I wonder to myself if I will survive my time here. Specifically, will I survive Golden Week? One may think that thought is some semi-comedic exaggeration, but I mean it.

Truth is, I have lost so much of myself in the collectivist environment that is Japanese baseball. I live in an environment, and furthermore, in a spotlight where I am unable to communicate and limited by both fear of insulting anyone in a rigid culture and fear of truly being myself, of expressing my needs, of expressing the fact that I think our practice regiment is totally nuts and dangerous for these young boys’ elbows and shoulders.

Despite the parts of myself that I have lost and will lose during the next month I spend at Fuchu, I think this experience is refining huge parts of me. Truth is, while few of my intricacies have space to shine in this rigid environment, I feel my intricacies shining and I want them to shine. In this environment that limits me and fills me with a crippling fear, I am getting to know myself, my fears, my shyness, better than I have. And, those are things I look forward to letting shine both now, and once I enter a world where individualism is once more part of vernacular.

So, what’s to come? Other than part of me dying as Golden Week begins and ensues, I will spend the rest of May with Fuchu, enduring the fear and the spotlight. Meanwhile, during the work/school-week, I study Japanese for three hours every day. It’s the most joyous, relaxed part of my week despite the intense difficulty of the language. Overall, I hope and pray the Japanese work ethic is infiltrating me slightly so I can enter the re-enter the U.S. and adapt to some kind of work that pays the bills without losing another part of myself.

Once May ends, the plan, as it stands, is to return to the Dominican Republic. Thus, I would end my trip in the same place I began. Back in July 2015, I intended to spend about two to three months in the Americas’ capital of baseball—Santo Domingo. I only spent six weeks. The mosquitoes, machismo, and a lack of clarity over what exactly I wanted to do there and during this entire year chased me away.

Now, I plan to return. I plan to confront the demons that haunted me. And, I plan to dedicate myself to writing about the past year I’ve spent on islands that play baseball. I have two works that I feel moved to create. One is a book about how cultures create their own iterations of baseball. I would also love to write something specifically about Curacao’s unique ability to create professional players. The next is more of a memoir, compiling both the journals and selves I’ve travelled through during the past year.

I hope more is to come in terms of the ‘blog.’ In this day in age, I fear Fuchu parents, players, and admin will find my musings, and take them the wrong way. I tell myself that each of these challenges will only make me more me, and make my goals and passions clearer. Godwillingly.