Every Woman is an Island

No woman is an island? I think that's wrong. Every woman is an island. There are things that rise above the waterline—there are boats that journey to and fro on lapping waves—and all these things are good. But your island, the Isle of You, is a place where others are not meant to dwell: if they come, it is as visitors. They have islands of their own to return to. And what do they know of your secret soil deep beneath the rocks, of the volcanic stirrings that pulled you from the sea? You cannot explain these things because there are not words to explain them; or there are words but which would take a life's whole span to speak. The language between islands is like the language between stars, high flooded promontories gazing out across an emptiness, who cherish others, loving what they see. They love your trees, they love your orbit and your tide. But at your white-hot core of spinning fire, at your roots beneath the stone and storied sea, at your heart-springs, they can only guess.

A Thing Too Beautiful

Sometimes I don't want to see a thing too beautiful. I've been taking my beauty in pieces lately, like nibbles on a cookie with afternoon tea. Once upon a time I'd hurl the whole tea down my throat, inhale the cookie, and go charging out the door. Crocodilian. But it has a strange way, with the years, of changing things beneath your skin...a little, a very little, so maybe no one notices but you. Then one day you wake up and your body rebels at the concept of throwing back the tea. Your body rebels at the large bite, at the rushedness of things. And it's all too much at once; it's a poison in high doses. Go slow. The world outside your door will wait, so sit there for a while, a little while, at your table, taking in the light...

View from the Window at Le Gras

The first photograph, taken at Saint-Loup-de-Varennes in 1826, ten years after Byron, Shelley, and Mary Godwin found refuge at Lake Geneva during The Year Without a Summer, ten years before the HMS Beagle carried Charles Darwin home to England’s shores.  Its light has crystallised since then, a hundred and eighty-nine years hence, but you can still see, if you try, the dappled gold that decks the Bourgogne country-side, and taste the scent of grapes upon the air.

Circles

Today one of the geese at the pond beside my workplace had her eggs hatch. Her nest was a mess of down feathers and eggshells, and the fuzzy-looking goslings, five in all, tottered about uncertainly, nibbling on blades of grass and dandelions beneath their parents' watchful eyes. Now and then they would obediently trundle into the pond behind their father and paddle the unfamiliar waters diligently, but once he flung himself from a small height--barely a handsbreadth--and the goslings huddled together piteously, afraid to take the plunge. He noticed quickly and circled back to rejoin them on land. I often saw them walk into each other and fall down, only to struggle up and dizzily wander off in the opposite direction from which they had come.

I saw one other interesting thing. The pond holds another brooding goose-hen and her mate, a pair of ducks, and many carp and other fish besides. These two ducks were swimming across the water when the hen, scarcely slowing, sent forth a cloud of excrement in the water behind her, which expanded, dissipating as it sank. Suddenly there welled up from the blackness below a swirling, twisting mass of orange, now dull, now shining in the half-light of its depth. Momentarily I recognised this as a multitude of goldfish, fist-sized, who were frantically taking nourishment from the waste of the duck. Two among their number were as black as leeches.

On Friends

Do you believe in friendship at first sight? It's a literary exaggeration, of course, but I often find that I know within a few minutes of meeting someone whether I'll like them or not. I've always found this interesting, as to me one of the primary requirements for deep friendship is some sort of history. Because my old friends and I have come down through so many years together, we are well versed in the poetry of each others' thoughts; we need not guess at moods and humours yet unfathomed; we know one another.

But the mere application of time in itself is not a guarantor of friendship. Those whom we have come to call friends, who have followed in our hearts despite time and distance and tribulation, have not merely been chosen by some chance whim of fate: we, rather, have made a conscious or unconscious decision to befriend them. How and why perhaps is not for us to say, but certainly it is no base instinct, no simple thought that binds us to our friends.

To read the writings of another, distanced even by many miles or years, can evoke feelings of friendship, can it not? It takes longer for our hearts to judge a friend this way, of course, for there is so much less in words than in movement and laughter, tears and silence. We grasp at ideologies and musings, hints at the deeper soul behind the writing. But there grows a certainty of purpose in friendship clearer, perhaps, and stronger, when it is bound together by the leaven of words. But perhaps it is hard for whom cannot grasp an arm in fellowship, or share a smile or drink.

To each his own, in friendship as in thought. Though I know you years or moments, though I have thrown with you or never set mine eyes upon your face, my friends at least I know. Do they know me? You who have seen me laugh, and loved me as I am; you who have seen me weep, in darkness and in light; you who have bled with me, and shared my sweat beneath the sun; you who have read my poems and my words, I say you are my own.

日記：Days of Rain, Days of Sunshine

I feel like it's been quite a while since I wrote here...because, I suspect, it has been quite a while.  It's amazing how quickly time passes; one becomes embroiled in the day-to-day travails of study, work, and leisure, and forgets to take time to put things into perspective.

Today, as I was walking home from university in the rain, I looked at the umbrella in my hand and thought to myself, 'I ought to buy a new umbrella.'  Stopping midway at the grocery store to buy some juice (I'm quite the imbiber of juice), I set my umbrella down with several others at an umbrella stand located just outside the store.  This is common practice in Japan; most do it.

I ended up buying a carton each of pineapple juice, grapefruit juice, orange juice, and grape juice, but after I had paid, bagged them, and walked out of the store, I made an unfortunate discovery.  In the five minutes I had been in there, my umbrella had been stolen.  It's not unheard of, but I suppose I simply wasn't expecting it in this rural area, on this rainy day.

I carried my groceries the rest of the way home through the pouring rain.

At first, I vowed to exact blood vengeance if I ever found the culprit, but I began to think of it like this: perhaps the universe heard my thoughts as I was walking with the umbrella.  Perhaps it was trying to help me, in its way; after all, it set me on the path to buying a new umbrella, didn't it?

日記：丑年書き初め

日々が続き、いつの間にか丑年になりました。

自分の年。

詳しく言って、私は木丑。

「木」に「風」の意味合いがあるそうだ。

でも牛がどうも好きじゃあない。

まあいい。

2008は色々の意味で、「離の年」だった。

2009はどんな年になるだろうか。

「旅の年」になるといいなあ。

今年は、自分だけのために歩いて行きたい。

他人に頼らず、自分だけの幸せを見付けたい。

そして、今の自分よりも心を広げたい。

汚れることを怯えず、自然とともに在る。

Diary: First-Writ of the Year of the Ox

The days went on, and before I knew it, it had become the Year of the Ox.

My year.

To be specific, I am a wood ox.

I hear that 'wood' also carries the connotation of 'wind'.

But for some reason, I never did like oxen.

Ah, well.

In many ways, 2008 was a 'Year of Partings' for me.

What sort of year will 2009 be, I wonder?

I hope it will be a 'Year of Journeys'.

This year, I want to walk forward for my own sake.

Without relying on others, I want to find a happiness of my own.

And I want to make my heart broader than it is.

Fearing not the dirt, I am one with nature.