A Mansion of One's Own
The past several weeks have been consumed by apartment hunting, a thoroughly exhausting affair. From our temporary homebase in Yotsuya, we’ve set out to meet realtors who have shuttled us by car and train to prospective homes scattered all over the various wards that comprise Tokyo. Each of Tokyo’s 23 wards is kind of a city unto itself—in fact, they officially refer to themselves as such in English: Shibuya City, Minato City, etc. A mini-borough, if you will. Anyway, we looked at apartments in the northern and eastern wards of Toshima, Taito, and Koto, then to the south and west in Shinagawa, Suginami, and Setagaya. In the end, we landed ourselves a place right in the heart of it all: technically Shinjuku, but on its border adjoining two nearby wards. Far from the teeming chaos of Shinjuku Station, thankfully, and within reasonable walking distance of Waseda, where I’ll ostensibly be attending courses in-person in the spring.
I’m reminded of how finding the right home is like dating. In each endeavor you carry the burden of hope and unfulfilled desires, imagining how your life might change through a perfect union that satisfies your physical and emotional needs. You arrive with some ingrained expectations, based on what you know of the situation, drawing from past experience. You assess, you conjecture. You dream.
This one may have looked nice from afar, but the floors inside are covered in dead moths. (True story.) The next one checks almost all the right boxes, but what about the surrounding vibe? (Too slow, you’ll get bored.) Another sounded promising on paper. You show up to find it’s actually the midst of a major overhaul. You can’t picture the end result. (It’s not your job to fix them.) And on and on.
We’ve been living out of our suitcases since leaving Brooklyn in June, so I’m very eager to get settled now that the hunt is over. Next up: accumulating—and arranging for the delivery of—essential furniture and household items. Our lease technically starts the day after Christmas, but we probably won’t be able to complete the move until early January. Still, a spiffy way to kick off the new year.
Like many things in the modern Japanese lexicon, apartments have come to be denoted by an English loanword, in this case: マンション manshon. Our new mansion doesn’t have a luxurious amount of space, but it does have a tiny extra room that I’m planning to use as an office/study. It comes with decent closets and a nice balcony where we can park our washing machine. Perhaps most importantly, all of the windows are south-facing. I’m a creature that thrives in sunlight. Can’t wait to bask while reading or writing, next to some new plant friends. I hope our cats will find different corners of the mansion to occupy so they don’t hiss and swipe at each other all day, like they do now.
It’s been one hell of a year, but we made it. 🥳