Little by Little

I have a second to add an essay I wrote for my college application. It is a short snippet of hitchhiking in Japan. Enjoy.

My head is invaded by the ringing of a bell not far away, it wakes me up. I'm wearing long underwear, pants, socks, three shirts, a jacket, and I am wrapped in a sleeping bag, yet I'm still cold. I check my watch while still enclosed in the sleeping bag, careful not to move enough to be noticed from outside the bag, 5:06 AM. My nose is freezing, but I know it is not frozen, as I can feel wet fluid creeping down a nostril. My throat is sore; it has been that way for days, too many nights sleeping outside. My muscles ache and my toes are numb from the cold. I risk a glance through the walnut sized opening at the top of my bag, the sun has lit the area around me, but a massive oak blocks me from the sun’s warming rays. I see for the first time where I have spent the night. I arrived here earlier this morning, around 3:30 AM. I had received a ride from a Brazilian truck driver but couldn't manage to be picked up again at such a late hour and walked to this site before nearly passing out from exhaustion. It was dark earlier so my decision to sleep here was based on the fact that I couldn't detect anyone nearby and it seemed to be a good distance from the road. I now see the beauty of this area, two meters from where I am laying stands a wooden shrine soaking the early morning sun like a freshly blossomed lily. On the far side of the shrine I notice a figure moving away, the Japanese man who rang the bell.
It is October 19th, I am in the suburbs of Nagoya, Japan, and I am homeless.
I have chosen this life for my gap year. It has been my choice to move to Asia and live on nothing, to completely detach myself from the world I know so well. Having lived in a fairly affluent family my entire life I have been raised away from the difficult living conditions well over 500 million people in the world live through each day, something I am both grateful for but also cannot settle with. I am learning away from school, I am experiencing first hand what descriptions cannot do justice. I have weathered the cold, feared the rain, and felt the judging eye of passersby. I have lived day to day, night to night, resting place to resting place. I have benefited from and perhaps even survived by the charity of strangers. It is for these experiences, for this knowledge, that I am here in this sleeping bag upon the dewy grounds of a Shinto Shrine.
I awake again, this time the noise surprises me with a jerk. I do not need to look out this time, I can tell by the shuffled footsteps and high voices that I am surrounded by school children. My watch tells me I have slept for another ninety minutes, about ten too many. I am now stuck, so I wait, I wait for the children to get an adult, I wait for the scolding in Japanese and a possible attempt at English when he sees that I am a foreigner. I fight back the emotion that is being magnified by my lack of sleep.
I am living the life so many can only dream. My responsibilities are limited to staying alive. No home, no job, no family to look after, I am free. Free to think, free to feel, free from the puppet strings that dance people around in the wealth driven world. By living at the most basic level I am learning in the world’s most intense classroom.
The local adult arrives; his first words inform me of his inability to speak English. Before I have time to think I begin explaining my situation, hoping he will turn a kind eye. Hoping he will treat the homeless boy before him kinder than I would have five months ago.

-Sean

P.S. Mason is in much better health now and he thanks everyone for their concerns.

P.P.S. If, after reading this, you feel compelled to donate money to the Sean and Mason Travel Asia Fund please refer to the August 6th post entitled Contacting Me.