太鼓

Taiko is saving my life. 

I would love it if I could practice two to three times a week. I would love it if I could return to my little apartment in Nariwa, return to Bitchu Taiko, spend some time with my old team. Reminisce. Play. Be lost. 

I miss Japan. I miss the time and the space I had there, in the middle of nowhere, to disappear. To study a new language. To be a foreigner. To pause and consider who I wanted to be.

I would drive myself to Taiko practice, along the main road in town beside the Takahashi river, at night, in every season. Along icy roads in the winter. With the window open in the summer. When I arrived at the middle school auditorium where we practiced, I was met with a loud chorus of hellos. We would unload the drums from the closet. Warm up. Practice our songs. Play for a few hours until blisters and callouses formed. 

I began playing Taiko, as a form of escape. To escape my loneliness, to escape from the responsibilities that awaited me at home, to be fully present rather than fret or worry about my future, my career, my relationships. It grounded me and was profoundly healing.

Makoto Taiko, the group I just joined, is excellent. It has been twenty three years since I’ve played and to my surprise, my body remembers.

I leave each practice happily exhausted. I love the drills and the physicality of it all. It is wild to feel the entire room echo and crescendo like that in unison. There is nothing else like it.

I’m grateful that for two hours I am fixated only on movement and sound. It is a source of comfort for me during what feels like such a tumultuous time.

I’m learning how to use my core, my breath and the movement of my entire body to strike the drum. I’m learning how to remain fluid. Learning how to keep going even when everything aches.