The Energetic Brain Club in Life and Death

Abstract

Japan's aging society leaves many of its eldest residents to encounter loneliness and social isolation. However, the elderly in Japan and elsewhere are rarely passive vessels to fate and often use available tools to meet their needs. Exploring loneliness and its remedy, this essay presents an ethnographic account of a single Energetic Brain Club meeting in the Tokyo sprawl. While, on paper, the club is aimed at preventing dementia, cognitive declines frequently remain a peripheral topic. Elderly members partake in hospitality rituals and engage in long, meandering conversations about family, memories, struggles, and politics. In the process, they find commiseration, connection, and a salve for loneliness. [ethnography, loneliness, dementia, memories, Japan] An hour's train ride from the center of Tokyo, Mrs. Ishikawa resides in solitude. Her two-story home lies in a row of old wooden houses on a street too narrow for cars to pass. Several dwellings are shuttered, their occupants gone years ago. Although elderly, Mrs. Ishikawa is in no danger of kodokushi ("lonely death"), where an individual dies unnoticed, the body often putrefying. She communicates with friends regularly, and home helpers come several times a week. Yet, Mrs. Ishikawa feels lonely. "I don't want to live all by myself in this house anymore," she declares to a group of elderly women gathered in her tatami room. "You know, I looked for a facility. The private nursing homes are too expensive. I found a nice public one, but I'm too healthy-no end-stage cancer or anything like that. They told me the waiting list is two years. I'll be dead before I get in!" * Between blossoms of plum and cherry, the spring afternoon is cold. All is quiet on Mrs. Ishikawa's street. A cat missing half its tail sits on a concrete hedge, washing. I ring the doorbell and let myself into Mrs. Ishikawa's home. As I slip off my shoes in the cramped entrance and find slippers, Mrs. Yamada appears and ushers me in. We are early. The other women of the Energetic Brain Club will arrive soon. At seventy-two, Mrs. Yamada is the youngest of the group and