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| I opened up the doors of my Chinese cabinet. The scent of the wood was strong, aged, and absolutely fragrant. I breathed in all I could at once. It was like the cabinet was outstretching its arms, inviting me into its story. |
I've been wondering if it was a coincidence that I started reading a book by a Japanese author just before we started talking about visiting Japan.
I saw Kitchen (Banana Yoshimoto) in Barnes & Noble a couple of years ago. The cover was interesting and I thought that maybe I was just being sucked in by scheming, savvy marketing and design people. (Never underestimate the advertising power of a book cover, I remember thinking.) Well, I didn’t buy it because there are always snazzy book covers grabbing my attention from the shelves and the list of prospective books for purchase builds and builds mentally. A couple months ago I ordered it from Amazon.com. I can’t even remember why I picked it over others now. Insignificance.
Anyway, I started reading it and the prose seemed pretty straightforward and simple. I thought the translation from Japanese had discarded some of its fluidity. Or maybe this was the intended style? After the first few pages, I wasn't expecting much depth, though the book was good and I was still hooked. Then I read this:
When was it I realized that, on this truly dark and solitary path we all walk, the only way we can light is our own? Although I was raised with love, I was always lonely.She was writing my thoughts, things I’d felt over and over; things I had been alone in living. And then: As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won’t let my spirit be destroyed.This is what people who’ve known death repeatedly as children know to which others, even some who are well into middle-age, seem oblivious. When I have met people who lost a parent or both in childhood, we feel an immediate connection because of this very sentiment. It’s the strangest thing because living it alone makes it easily seem like it’s some kind of innate personality quirk (flaw?), and when you meet someone else who has the same vision and who also grieved loss as a child, it is impossible to ignore how unique and profound childhood grieving is. Kitchen is entirely about two people with such a connection. This book was written for me. In the uncertain ebb and flow of time and emotions, much of one’s life history is etched in the senses. And things of no particular importance, or irreplaceable things, can suddenly resurface in a café one winter night.Which reminds me of this from Snow Falling On Cedars: But it was not difficult for her, on her wedding night, to then cast Ishmael out of her mind completely; he had only crept in by accident, as it were, because all romantic moments are associated willy-nilly - even when some are long dead.Both of which are more eloquent than the what I wrote about the same observation of the character of memories. I am just so fascinated by that! A random thought that should’ve been lost but isn’t; instead it is stored "willy-nilly" in grey matter oblivion until just the right sensory input illuminates it again. Is everything I’ve experienced stored there? How can I just have this random memory of a color of a thing I saw 15 years ago? A memory that just passes in a second and I have to force myself to back up and reflect upon it’s oddity. Where the hell did that come from, and why now? My mind is always flowing in circles from past to present to future. Memories intermingle with reality and fantasy. Such a good mix, like unbaked chocolate chip cookie dough. A friend was recently complaining how his particular brand of mental circles drive him nuts, paralyze him. I know that too. But the web of my life spun in my brain is a magnificent thing. The relationships between all things, the compounding of experience upon experience that builds wisdom, tossed with a dash of desire. Accepting the magnitude of full consciousness (self-awareness) forces a premature confrontation with loss, like in Kitchen. Like Batty grieving in Bladerunner. It inspires the human need for afterlife, reincarnation. Sometimes I look at people and all I see are stories. Tell me the story of your life. I want to know what only you and no other knows, how you and only you can see it. I want to preserve the unique pattern and texture of the web of your life so we can all see through another’s lens the truth of history and reality. So many truths. So many millions of us without documentation, without history. So many lost in time… and make no mistake: They are forgotten. |
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