Last week I put on my favorite Etienne Aigner heels and went out clubbing–that is, to the Minneapolis Woman’s Club. Housed in a handsome old red brick building near Loring Park at the edge of downtown, the club is one of my current home city’s most celebrated venues for weddings and concerts. I’m not a member. A few years earlier with my friend Lois Greiman to speak at an author luncheon. At that time I was struck by the facility’s elegance and the interesting ladies–mostly over the age of 70–who made the time to come out and listen to a couple of mystery authors yammer on. This time I didn’t want to be a performer; I wanted to go incognito with some women friends for fun. But was the word ‘fun’ congruous with an organization that had been started by the city’s female elite in 1907?  And the whole business of it being a Woman’s club (versus a women’s club, or a club that didn’t discriminate on account of gender) struck me as worth investigating.

To reach the club, I drove 5 minutes with my club member friend Janis in her harvest yellow PT Cruiser–a proverbial golden carriage to take us to the Woman’s Palace. Up the steps and into the softly lit foyer, we spotted another friend waiting on a chintz sofa. Within minutes, I’d sunk into a comfortable glow of polished wood, tapestry and Chardonnay. I was beginning to forget that we’d ever considered going to normal restaurant bar for our gathering. Why in the world? What pleasure this was–a room full of women of all ages, talking with each other, laughing, and not a single ‘Real Housewives’ cleavage in the room.

While social/charitable clubs are reputed to be on the wane, the Minneapolis Woman’s Club appeared to be thriving. Many professional women members, mostly in the 40s and above, were chatting with friends on comfortable couches. It was hard to break away from the lounge–where we were meeting old and new friends right and left. But after an hour, we drifted into the white-linen dining room, where we were given menus that were an update of club fare–lamb chops, salmon, and big dinner salads–but with charming side additions liked creamed celeraic and roasted brussel sprouts. You know–the vegetables that women always want to eat, but nobody else in the family does. I was stunned at how delicious the old-fashioned meal was, thanks to the club’s new chef (“from France!” Janis reported). We ended with excellent coffee and the ‘snowball,’ a vanilla ice cream sundae that apparently dates back many decades as a club favorite.

What do you need to join the Club? Two members to recommend you, an initiation fee that floats between $500 and &750, about $160 in monthly dues–and a commitment to spend $150 or more on food and beverage per quarter. It’s spendy, but probably a bit less than the athletic club I belong to. Though here all the heavy lifting at the Woman’s Club does not have cardiac benefits: just social and intellectual. However, it must be said that the club also donates tens of thousands a year on programs for women and children. I suppose the few all-male clubs that are left engage in similar philanthropy. But why does the idea of a men’s club–or a men’s club that will only grudgingly allow women–rankle me? I remember now how disturbing it felt to visit the Calcutta Club, for decades an all-male organization that now occasionally accepts women members, although  no female member or guest can ever set foot inside a famous upstairs bar.

I don’t have a problem with single sex education: for a lot of the childhood years, I think it’s better. But clubs are another kettle of fish; and I honestly can’t understand why I like the Minneapolis Woman’s Club so much and feel bad about the Calcutta Club.

But with any kind of social club, there is a deeper cost that many women my age cannot afford–the cost of leaving a busy family life. Participating in club life means going somewhere, maybe once a week, to spend time socializing–I don’t remember seeing any ladies scrolling their cell phones or chatting on them. Writers like me always have their laptops–they feel guilty when not writing. And for a mother in my shoes (Dansko clogs this time), how can I run away from the kids at the witching hour, when they need a ride back from their sports practice, homework help, not to mention dinner?

I’m not ready to transform into a clubwoman yet. But if you’re going next week, give me a call.

Sunday, March 11 marks the first anniversary of the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami that killed over 20,000 residents of Japan’s Tohoku coast last year. Small cities and towns that few outside of Japan had ever heard of were suddenly world news. Tsunami waves, which at some points may have been 50 feet high, swept six miles inland with deadly force.

Immediately after the tsunami, many volunteers, the Japanese Self Defense Forces and US military troops traveled to Tohoku to bring food and medical care to the survivors, clear debris and begin rebuilding. This world of tragedy, confusion, and human compassion is the background of my next Rei book. This summer, I’ll go to Tohoku to continue my research and participate in the ongoing volunteer work. At this stage of the writing, however, I’m still locked at my desk in Minneapolis and have been gathering details about the disaster and its aftermath from Japanese volunteers who continue working hard on restoring damaged communities.

Photo courtesy AP: Junji Kurokawa

Dr. Jun Sato, a young economist at Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University, has been a great help to me, but more importantly, to the tsunami survivors. At his own cost, he travels six hours one way from his home in central Japan to Rikuzentaketa, a city in Iwate Prefecture that was completely destroyed by the tsunami. Ten percent of its people were killed or disappeared during the tsunami, and almost every building was destroyed. Out of a grove of thousands of old pine trees, only one survived; and its image has become the city’s emblem. Here are some questions Jun recently answered for me about volunteer work and Rikuzentaketa’s future.

Q: The photos of Rikuzentaketa are more devastating than the others I’ve seen. How is the city doing today?

Jun: Unlike other disaster areas, all of the downtown of Rikuzentaketa was destroyed and nothing other than debris is there. Many people have lost their friends, families and jobs. But they work hard and try to recover the city, and many people are helping them. What I can do is very small, but better than nothing. A lot of debris is everywhere, and we need to remove it. But it seems to me that more work is needed for mental care and employment. So letting many people know what is happening there is very important.

Q: What did you recently accomplish over a weekend’s work, and what are your plans for March 11?

Jun Sato is on the far left of the volunteer crew for Rikuzentaketa. Out of respect for survivors, photos are only permitted at the volunteer center.

Jun: Last weekend, I wiped off sand from postcards found in the debris. Most of them were greeting cards for the new year. The purpose is to return the to the owners and make an address book by reading the address and putting it into a PC. It was a mentally difficult task. You cannot wipe sand from a card without seeing a message on it. They wished a happy new year only two months before. But many people have participated in this painstaking task and that makes me encouraged.

I planned to be in Rikuzentaketa on March 11. But recently I decided not to go, because there will be a memorial service there, and residents want to do it peacefully with their families. In fact, the volunteer center is closed on March 11, considering the feelings of the residents.

Q: What was life like for survivors in the shelters?

Jun: I asked a member of my team. He visited a school gym in Kesennuma of Miyagi Prefecture a week after the quake and brought some foods and blankets. In the shelter, members of the Red Cross and Self Defense Forces were delivering food. Even at a big shelter, they did not have hot meals until three weeks after the quake. It took more than a month for people who were in small shelters or stayed in their own homes to have hot meals. After knowing it, my friend visited people who stayed in their homes and gave some food.

Q: Are Rikuzentaketa’s citizens still mostly in individual shelters (metal trailers)? Why aren’t they in real homes? 

Jun: Yes, most of Rikuzentaketa citizens still live in temporary housing, which are located in uplands. The condition is not so good. For example, it is cold and noisy inside because the walls are thin. The shopping area and hospital are far from there. There are many obstacles to having their homes rebuilt. There seems to be some conflicts among citizens and the city, prefectural and central governments. The government basically wants residents to live in the uplands, but they know it is costly. Some residents want to stay where they used to live, but some want to move.

Another obstacle to rebuilding the disaster area is very few other areas of Japan accept debris for fear of radiation from the debris, even though no radiation is detected. it is unfortunate that many people regard debris as garbage. Once you do volunteer work, you immediately know that debris is not garbage. It is a piece of the daily life of the residents shattered by the tsunami. I want the people refusing to accept debris to think about how they feel when they have to give up something they got from their loved ones simply because it is broken and treated like gabage.

Q: Is “kizuna” the right word to express the strength of the volunteer-survivor connection?

Jun: A good question. Kizuna has several meanings. A dictionary says: i. anchoring animals to a tree; ii. affection among family members; iii. close ties established after some events among those who did not know each other well.

Kizuna was “word of the year” in 2011. Unfortunately, it seems to me many people use the word’s second meaning. People say that they try to see their parents and friends more often after March 11. But if using the third meaning, kizuna is right.

Since I started volunteer work, I feel a sense of unity with members who gather to help people–and even with their predecessors. In 1667, the residents in Rikuzentaketa started to plant trees  to prevent salt damage. They could not see the grown pine trees. But what motivated them might be the smiling faces of people in the future. When I knew this fact, I noticed that what we are doing now is exactly the same as what the predecessors did. The pine trees that they dreamed of are just like those that we are dreaming of today. It encourages me a lot. The accomplishment by the predecessors quietly but clearly shows that someday we surely will look up at beautiful pine trees if we hope and continue our efforts. Now I feel close ties with members working with me and the predecessors more than 300 years ago. I would like to use the word kizuna to express my feeling.

There once was a mother who longed for the suburban Japan she’d once lived in: a Hayao Miyazaki universe of lush gardens where camellias grew wild around and the chorus of tree frogs was deafening. The woman had to leave Hayama and return to American with her husband. They became parents. But because the children were raised on American computer animation, they preferred slapstick like Shrek and Puss in Boots, which when viewed in 3-D made the mother’s stomach and head feel bad.

In the theater earlier this year, just before one of the awful American animated films began, a trailer played for “The Secret World of Arietty.” The mother realized it had to somehow be connected with the May Norton book she’d enjoyed in her childhood half a century ago–although the story seemed different. But this new film, distributed by Disney, was made at Ghibli, Miyazaki’s famous  studio. It looked gorgeous. She promised herself that somehow or other, she would get at least one child to go with her to see it.

So it came that on a wintry Monday night, one excited mother and one reluctant ten-year-old son got tickets to The Secret World of Arietty, which was blissfully non 3-D– although with the brilliant artistic animation, ivy rustled as if it was truly dimensional, and pearl-like drops of water on leaves burst as the sun dries them. And the story was enchanting; a 12 year-old city boy goes to spend some quiet months with his elderly aunt in her French style chateau (although it is Japan). He’s sickly and facing heart surgery; all the adults try to protect him from exerting himself. Then he meets the tiny Borrower, Arrietty, who lives in a beautiful tiny home her parents have made inside some bricks in the basement. And he realizes that he can protect someone whose sincere appreciation gives him the happiness he’s missing. Other especially entertaining characters are a grumpy, chubby cat who’ll remind you of Tottoro; a Tarzanish boy Borrower who lives alone in the wild, and a comic ‘obachan’ housekeeper (voiced by Carol Burnett in the English language version).

As I watched, I marvelled at how much my son looked like Sho (pronounced Shawn in the American version). And for once, I let him whisper excitedly through the movie. “Mom, they’re smaller than tea cups!” And “Mom, that counter must be the height of our whole house!” He appeared spellbound during the film, but afterward would only admit to a “good” rating.

When I got home, I went online to look at Japanese trailers for the original version; for me, the music was much more gorgeous sung in Japanese, and I thought some of the characters, like Arrietty’s mother, sounded much more gentle and appealing when speaking Japanese.

But frankly, my Japanese isn’t fluent enough to have made it through the original film, and I didn’t want to miss a word of the story, because the emotions expressed are so sweet. Just like the existentialist, unfulfilled love of Sean and Arrietty.

I quoted the last sentence to my son. He said: “What?”

But I know he liked it.