THAT DAY

I watch Okko's Inn, an anime by Kitaro Kosaka, formerly of Studio Ghibli.

Okko lost her parents in a car crash; she lives in a shabby hotspring-inn her grandma runs. Okko sees ghosts--her parents, a childhood friend of Grandma (still a boy, as he died young), and the joyful little poltergeist Myo (older sister of eccentric Matsuki, heir to a rival, more commercial spa). She learns to heal wounded guests, and the gods send ones that'll help heal her--a sick boy who lost his mom; a sexy fortune teller who got dumped, and, at last, the wounded family in the car that killed her parents. She slowly befriends her rival at the neighboring spa, and in the end helps the local ghosts reincarnate. Moving and visually gorgeous; worthy of Miyazaki or Makoto Shinkai...

Except... at the end we're shown Okko losing her second sight as she matures--and heals. After all, you can't live in the spirit world indefinitely!

Except I do. Not that my second sight's like Okko's. I don't see spirits as if they're the living, I see the living as spirits--see moods, energy, health or illness, swirling round them. Distracted by all that energy, I can barely see your faces and bodies. Mere anchors.

I've lived a long life this way. So this "you can't live like that" trope--whether in ancient myth or modern anime--annoys me. Remember the Tragic Mulatto? Or they used to say about gays "I thought people like that killed themselves", hint hint, hurry up? Okko's not egregious--it just quietly echoes the old lie about my kind.

Fine, I'm not human. Sue me.

THAT NIGHT

I open boxes of my dad's old books. Titles and authors faded. Recognize one tentatively from a photo, though. Pull it out. Yep--I don't know the author or title, but as I flip through, every third or fourth page has an illustration I remember. Opaque gouache, almost cutout shapes; not fully geometric but quite stylized. Still, landscapes, figures, and artifacts are all recognizable.

It's a novel telling of a boat carrying cargo down a great river--both sail and engines, but often just riding the current. Crags, hills, men, machines. A teen matures through hard work, as in Captains Courageous?

But late in the book, it shifts. In low hills--or are those hills, is this Mississippi Mound-Builder country?--the barge docks below a labyrinthine complex. A temple. Near-empty--just one elusive figure, a beautiful wolf- or fox-woman.

At last--late in the book--I finally climb to her living space high on a bluff. Great views. Messy apartment, though--she's a busy creature!

She comes in and welcomes me. I stare.

And for a moment I take it as a fox mask and a strap-on tail.

For a moment.

Soon after, the climax of the novel: now that I've met a fox spirit, I know the signs--and have to face that I show them all. Raised human, ignorant of my true nature..., but a born fox.

And this is what stories are for--fantasy at least. You try on an impossible mask and find it fits too well. You were one all along.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• Dad's books: Okko finds a scrapbook of her grandma's childhood with snapshots of the boy Okko knows as a ghost.
• Why's the dream mix cultures like this?--Japanese shinto temples on hills, the stepped pyramids of the Mound Builders on the lower Mississippi, and of course Egypt--pyramids and river temples with reedlike columns. Maybe this mix emphasizes it's about world beliefs, not specific to Japan or America.
• Work strengthens and matures you: Okko uses work both as solace and a bridge to friendship with her rival Matsuki. I can relate--work sustains me too.
• Elusive beauty with messy room: in Okko, the beautiful fortune-teller turns out to be grieving over a breakup. I think this is a side of me I don't admit to myself--my messy projects fill my work/live space, hiding, or at least easing, loneliness. Not easy finding love when you're a fox-spirit.
• Fox/wolf girl, or hat/mask? Okko wears a fox-mask to dance the annual Shinto dedication of the hotsprings. The dream may not insist I'm a literal fox-spirit, but, like Okko, I AM a shaman. Just, unlike Okko, a permanent one.
• ACTION, immediate: try illustrating dreams in this flatter more stylized way--digital textured brush, opacity 100%, simplified shapes almost icons. (I didn't do it for this one--I sketched in pencil, giving the final pictures that granular look.)
• ACTION, long-term: face it. Humans assume my real life can't be. That limits love and friendship, but I can't flatten myself into a human being. Not just won't. Can't. Don't waste time trying.

8 MONTHS LATER

A study on lockdown and social isolation during the covid-19 pandemic found that generally, the stress led to a depressed immune system--just what we don't want! One exception: those with a strong sense of purpose, of mission, stayed healthy. Okko and me.

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