Sayonara
by
We had dinner tonight with two other couples. One couple will be leaving Thursday for a big adventure: they are going to Japan for (at least) one year to teach English. I had a friend do this after he graduated college (about the same age as these two now). My friend sold or gave away almost everything he owned to go—it was the cheapest solution of what to do with the stuff he wasn’t bringing with him. I ended up with a lot of his books (sssh, I’d hate for him to ask for them back these many years later).
That friend of mine also introduced me to classical Japanese writers, with Kawabata and Tanizaki (I love, love, love The Makioka Sisters) becoming my two favorites. Tonight, we talked about these writers. And about Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude (it is now at the top of my list of books to read). And about Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (I really, really don’t like classic Russian literature!), and even a word about Hemingway and Faulkner.
It was such a delightful meal. I hadn’t thought of those Japanese writers in years. Not like I thought of them tonight. And those of us there not leaving for Japan in two days, we couldn’t help but feel the excitement, the anticipation, that the two leaving were feeling: its electric current danced around our table like another member of our party. Oh, youth! To be 23 with the world at one’s feet! To have a lifetime of unknown tomorrows in unknown countries (they plan to return to America via India, China, and other Eastern Asian countries). Ah!
It seemed a sign when my fortune cookie read, “You are a lover of words, someday you should write a book.” But that sign proved not to be too auspicious when another at the table read us his fortune, “You are a lover of words, someday you should write a book.”
And so it was that we stepped into the damp evening air. Thoughts ran through my head of the Japanese books I would recommend to our young friends as they begin their big Asian adventure. Then I saw that I had spit-up cookies dried on my shirt from Sun drooling on me earlier in the day when she was convinced she could fit an entire box of cookies in her mouth (she cannot) and having a mouth too full to chew, her saliva dissolved said cookies out of her oozing mouth and onto me.
YES! Someone else who isn’t into Russian literature… Oh, wow, that adventure sounds so incredible! I want to be 23 again! Ok, granted, I’m only 25, but I feel like I missed out on all this adventure b/c I was too preoccupied with career.
Jane Moneypenny’s last blog post..That Feeling Called Gut
You should write a book. I’d read it. But perhaps leave out parts about cookie drool.
Again, my gag reflex reminds me why I do not yet have children. Let me go look at my bank statement for some reinforcement.
Katie’s last blog post..I think not.
But will they be able to find a decent sushi joint?
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You should check out this blog: http://www.dreamingtrack.com/index.php
It is wonderful….I’ve lived vicariously through Evenstar and Mau for a couple of years now. Great travel writing, photos and vids.
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Ah, kids… they have such an ability to yank us back to earth. I “left” home after graduating and never went back. Many of my fellow classmates said they wanted to leave later. They never did. I wonder whether there is a small time frame for selling off your things and leaving for jobs overseas. Adventures can really happen anywhere can’t they?
lilalia’s last blog post..Friends Indeed
Ah, the dried cookie drool. I know it well.
Sounds like a fun evening. And let me echo the chorus of “You SHOULD write a book…”
you should totally write a book!! I am not familiar with the Japanese writers…hmmmm
stacey’s last blog post..Montana Recap
What a way to bring you back to earth – cookie drool. I agree you should write a book – not about cookie drool!!!
First, I will loan you my current copy of 100 Years. It (and Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow) are books I can never hold onto because I keep giving my copies away.
And have you read Haruki Murakami? I stumbled onto him by mistake on the nutrias.org (NOLA Library) site, and decided I had to have After The Quake, even though that book was a Katrina casualty.
He’s fantastic (both in style and in quality).
/s/ yr obedient servant
WetBankGuy
How exciting for your friends. My aunt spent several years in Japan in the late 1960s as a missionary teaching English. I still think you can take the fortune to heart… you have a wonderful way with words.
(Seven more weeks until BlogHer!)
Tara R.’s last blog post..We need the rain…
So beautifully told, even the cookie drool
You SHOULD write a book! And perhaps so should the other person at the table. Everyone has a story, but I am sure you would tell it well.
p.s. I LOVE Japanese authors. I loved Banana Yoshimoto for years
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