Wrapped in Hope
We need Yuzu.
We need him creating ice stories. We need him revolutionizing figure skating. We need him selling us Gucci scarves and Haier refrigerators. We need him speaking to us in English. (本当に君の英語をありがとうございました, ゆづ。) [Truly, thank you for your English, Yuzu.] But, most of all, we need him to continue giving us hope.
It’s been months since Yuzu announced his Maintenance Period, and, I have to admit, the Fanyus have been shockingly mature about this. I mean, to my knowledge we haven’t even tried to lure him out with gyoza and earphones placed strategically around Sendai. I guess it goes to show we really are Professional Fanyus now. Either that or we’re all just trying to stay on our best behavior so Yuzu will come back and not just decide to turn the car around and stay in his Maintenance Period forever. We’ll be good, Yuzu. Just please, please drive us all to your fourth Ice Story; ne? (P.S. I still want to know if Yuzu can drive…)
But patience does not negate longing.
One day, a Yuzu interview was playing on my TV while I worked, and suddenly, I found myself just staring at the TV…smiling. Not because he had done anything particularly humorous or humorous due to its particularity (like sanitizing his bangs) but simply because he was Yuzu. And he makes me happy. And that’s when I realized how much I miss Yuzu’s face. (And yes, I know there are approximately 74 magazines I could buy RIGHT NOW to see that face.) But I miss Yuzu’s face in real time with us. This has nothing to do with how unbelievably attractive he is. (I really had to rein myself in on how many adverbs I allowed before “attractive.”) This has everything to do with how much comfort this person brings me. I will even go so far as to say “calms me” – though I retract the use of this phrase when it comes to seeing Yuzu IN PERSON.
Knowing Yuzu is in this world makes it a better, calmer, more hopeful place…for us all.
Because sometimes you feel like you don’t have any hope. But then, just like the Fanyu behind me at GIFT whispering to Yuzu, you hear Yuzu whispering to you, “できる.” [You can.]
As seems to be the case with nearly everything Yuzu does, Yuzu brings hope in his own unique way. He is not sickeningly positive. He is not naively optimistic. He is not oblivious to reality. And he is not untouched by sadness. Yuzu brings hope in a way that says, “I am with you.” Yuzu is always trying to tell us 大丈夫 [It’s OK]. I think, for even longer than when he first whispered it to us in the Tokyo Dome.
Earthquakes, wars, tsunamis. Yuzu takes stories that could leave you sad or depressed and infuses them with compassion and wraps them in hope.
He gives them feathers.
He sprinkles them like cherry blossoms.
He lights them with lanterns.
He cloaks them in white.
And he picks them up as flowers and cradles them close to his chest.
But he doesn’t try to force the night to day. He accepts the dark sky and fills it with the brightest stars. It is always about “let’s live better” – “let’s help each other” – “let’s be good humans.”
Yuzu doesn’t just want you to have a nice day, he wants you to live a beautiful life.
It’s apparent by the way he scans the crowd after every Ice Story. You can tell that if he could, he would sit down and look at every single banner. And wish each Fanyu “Happy Birthday”…but don’t get me started on that. To Yuzu, we’re not just fans. We’re people – with lives and jobs and worries. We have bad days. We catch colds. We can’t afford trips to Japan. We endure natural disasters. And he knows that. Because he does too. (Well, he probably doesn’t have the traveling to Japan problem…)
His purpose is to give us a reason to keep going. Our purpose is to inspire him to keep going. And if that means posting, “We *heart* you, Yuzu” in the Menship Radio chat in the middle of a slew of comments I can’t read in Japanese, that’s what I’ll keep doing. (If I’ve ever posted that inappropriately based on what you’re talking about at the moment, Yuzu, ごめん [sorry].) I just hope Yuzu remembers that we are also here for him. You don’t have to save up all the misfortune points on your own, Yuzu.
Even now, as we wait…we wait with hope. Because I really don’t think Yuzu is ready to leave us yet. (As his Menship Radios prove on a regular basis!)
It’s not a matter of if he’ll come back, it’s a matter of in what genius way he’ll come back.
When Yuzu went Pro, we never dreamed we’d get one-man (dare I say, one-SO MAN) Ice Stories, and regular tweets (Xs?) and not so regular Insta posts. And monthly Menship Radios…that go on…for…awhile…
I wish I could go back in time to 2014 when I first laid eyes on Yuzu and could say to myself, “There he is! The person who is going to change your life forever. You won’t believe how much you are going to love this person you will never meet. Be grateful for every second you are co-existing…even if he’s in a Maintenance Period. Oh yeah, and you better start saving money now. This glorious gratitude won’t come cheap.”
Life gets hard. And Yuzu knows it. But unlike so many others, Yuzu says, “ちょっと 待って.” [Wait a minute.] This doesn’t have to be so bleak. In fact, it can be beautiful. Somebody get me a white costume.”
The perfect physical representation of this mindset is when Yuzu falls while practicing, starfishes across the ice, hits the wall and then pops back up with an amused grin while striking a landing pose. This is how he lives his life.
Yuzu picks up the world, dusts the ice off its butt and says, “頑張って ね?” [Do your best.]
While the rest of the world molts, Yuzu gently drops feathers of hope to remind us there is still a lightness left in the world. And for that to return, we’ll wait for as long as it takes.
