The journey was not a straightforward one, and it took me to unexpected, unrelated-to-Hearn locales such as Helsinki, where, for three months in 2012, I learned to breathe deeply again, read for pleasure again, and found the will to write again. I am grateful for the friends in that serene city by the Baltic Sea: Martti-Tapio Kuuskoski, Outi J. Hakola, Laura Lindstedt and the Lindstedt family in Sotkamo, Donna McCormack, Kay Edwards, José Filipe Silva, Simon Rabinovitch, Taavi Sundell, Antti Sadinmaa, Maijastina Kahlos, Jin Haritaworn, Elisabeth L. Engebretsen, Marja Utela (and to Annabel Fan for the e-introduction to Marja), and in particular to Oanh Pham, who gave me a glimpse of life at the far northern end of the Vietnamese diaspora.

I am indebted to Michiko Boyer, who patiently tutored me in Japanese before I left Brooklyn for Tokyo in 2015 (she knew exactly the vocabulary I would need: daigaku, eki, and konbini); Sawako Nakayasu and Manami Maeda at the International House of Japan in Tokyo, who with care and warmth administered the U.S.-Japan Creative Artists Fellowship program; Fukuko Kobayashi and Issei Wake for generously helping me to secure housing at Waseda University; and Kobayashi-sensei for traveling with me to Matsue, where I “met” at the Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Museum a Koizumi Setsu who, at last, made perfect sense to me.

I also raise a glass, again and again, to the following intrepid denizens of Tokyo for the kindness and generosity that they showed to this sojourner who would have been lonely and lost—well, even more lost—during her three months in their beautiful maze of a city without their convivial company: Yoshiko Hayashi (and to Andrea Louie for the e-introduction to Yoshiko); Mariko Nagai; Jon Wu; Jeff Kingston; Machiko Osawa; Leza Lowitz; Roberto Mollá (who was in Valencia, Spain, but in Tokyo in spirit) for the e-introductions to Tomohiko and Tamoko Matsumoto, Francisco Silva, Yumi Uemura, and Makiko Hamabe; my fellow U.S.- Japan Fellow Paul Kikuchi for the face-to-face introductions to Yuki Takabe (now Yuki Ishida), Yukie Higuchi, and Noriko Iwanaga; and Mayumo Inoue, who wonderfully e-introduced himself and introduced me to Kaori Nakasone.

The end of my stay in Japan was made complete by an invitation by professor Kyoko Yoshida to speak at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, where I had the honor of meeting Shigemi Nakagawa, Masahiko Nishi, Riyo Niimoto, Yuki Matsumoto, Keiko Shimojo, Hitomi Nakamura, and Raphaël Lambert.