have a feeling that it is for
my benefit. I look around the house. It is modern and comfortable. The man is a
famous Japanese actor.
Soon we are drinking sake on the rocks
which is a good drink on a hot, humid Japanese June night. The wife continues
busying herself. Now she is cooking things for us to eat and he helps her by
cooking some things, too. They are a very efficient kitchen team. This could be
a play.
After a while, there are a lot of good
things to eat on the table. We eat, drink and talk away. There is nothing more
for her to do. She has not sat down since the company arrived.
Now she sits down but she does not sit down
at the table. She sits down maybe five feet away and listens to the conversation.
I watch her sitting there five feet away from the table and I think about what
her husband said jokingly when we arrived, “I am the lion of my own house.”
I didn’t know what it meant but I knew that
it meant something. Now I know what it means, watching her sit five feet away
from the table, not joining us, but enjoying herself just the same.
I look into her eyes. They are dark and
beautiful. They are happy eyes. She is glad that we have come. She has done her
best to make us comfortable and now she is enjoying our presence.
In her eyes, I see the past of Japan. I see
thousands of years of Japanese women, not sitting at the table and happy. As I
write this, I can also see American women reading these words and grinding their
teeth while thinking; Oh, the poor downtrodden slave of male tyranny! Instead
of waiting on them like a servant, she should kick them all in the balls!
I can see the expression on their faces.
I can see their eyes filled with hatred
that is so far away from this room.
The Magic of Peaches
How many stops?
How many stops?
How many stops?
To the reindeer
station?
Yesterday I bought four peaches though
I didn’t need them. When I went into the grocery store I did not have any
interest in peaches. I wanted to buy something else but I can’t remember now
what it was.
I was walking through the fruit section to
get what has been forgotten when I saw the peaches. Peaches were not my
destination but I stopped and looked at them, anyway. They were beautiful
peaches but still that wasn’t reason enough for me to buy them. I have seen a lot
of good-looking peaches in my time.
Without thinking I picked up one of the
peaches to feel how firm it was, and it felt just right, but hundreds of peaches
over dozens of years have felt the same way.
What was going to cause me to buy peaches
that I did not need?
Then I smelled a peach and it smelled just
like my childhood. I stood there travelling back as if on a railroad train into
the past where a peach could be an extraordinary event, almost like a reindeer
station with a herd of deer waiting patiently for the train on a summer’s day
and all carrying bags of peaches to the end of the line.
Times Square in Montana
PART ONE:
I write in a small room at the top of an
old barn made out of redwood a long time ago, when many people were alive who
are dead now; Billy the Kid, Louis Pasteur, Queen Victoria, Mark Twain, Emperor
Meiji of Japan, and Thomas Edison.
There are no redwood trees in these
mountains of Montana, so the wood was brought over from the Pacific Coast and
made into this huge barn which is over three stories high if stories is the
right word to apply to the height of a barn.
The foundation of the barn is made out of
glacial rocks placed in perfect companionship to each other to hold the redwood
and all the things that are a barn up to the constantly changing Montana sky
where I sit writing just a few feet below it.
The rocks also form a huge basement for the
barn, which is kind of unusual because not many barns have a basement. The
basement to this barn is another world best left to another time.
Later…
To get to my writing room high in this barn
there is a flight of stairs that are almost metaphysical in their
my benefit. I look around the house. It is modern and comfortable. The man is a
famous Japanese actor.
Soon we are drinking sake on the rocks
which is a good drink on a hot, humid Japanese June night. The wife continues
busying herself. Now she is cooking things for us to eat and he helps her by
cooking some things, too. They are a very efficient kitchen team. This could be
a play.
After a while, there are a lot of good
things to eat on the table. We eat, drink and talk away. There is nothing more
for her to do. She has not sat down since the company arrived.
Now she sits down but she does not sit down
at the table. She sits down maybe five feet away and listens to the conversation.
I watch her sitting there five feet away from the table and I think about what
her husband said jokingly when we arrived, “I am the lion of my own house.”
I didn’t know what it meant but I knew that
it meant something. Now I know what it means, watching her sit five feet away
from the table, not joining us, but enjoying herself just the same.
I look into her eyes. They are dark and
beautiful. They are happy eyes. She is glad that we have come. She has done her
best to make us comfortable and now she is enjoying our presence.
In her eyes, I see the past of Japan. I see
thousands of years of Japanese women, not sitting at the table and happy. As I
write this, I can also see American women reading these words and grinding their
teeth while thinking; Oh, the poor downtrodden slave of male tyranny! Instead
of waiting on them like a servant, she should kick them all in the balls!
I can see the expression on their faces.
I can see their eyes filled with hatred
that is so far away from this room.
The Magic of Peaches
How many stops?
How many stops?
How many stops?
To the reindeer
station?
Yesterday I bought four peaches though
I didn’t need them. When I went into the grocery store I did not have any
interest in peaches. I wanted to buy something else but I can’t remember now
what it was.
I was walking through the fruit section to
get what has been forgotten when I saw the peaches. Peaches were not my
destination but I stopped and looked at them, anyway. They were beautiful
peaches but still that wasn’t reason enough for me to buy them. I have seen a lot
of good-looking peaches in my time.
Without thinking I picked up one of the
peaches to feel how firm it was, and it felt just right, but hundreds of peaches
over dozens of years have felt the same way.
What was going to cause me to buy peaches
that I did not need?
Then I smelled a peach and it smelled just
like my childhood. I stood there travelling back as if on a railroad train into
the past where a peach could be an extraordinary event, almost like a reindeer
station with a herd of deer waiting patiently for the train on a summer’s day
and all carrying bags of peaches to the end of the line.
Times Square in Montana
PART ONE:
I write in a small room at the top of an
old barn made out of redwood a long time ago, when many people were alive who
are dead now; Billy the Kid, Louis Pasteur, Queen Victoria, Mark Twain, Emperor
Meiji of Japan, and Thomas Edison.
There are no redwood trees in these
mountains of Montana, so the wood was brought over from the Pacific Coast and
made into this huge barn which is over three stories high if stories is the
right word to apply to the height of a barn.
The foundation of the barn is made out of
glacial rocks placed in perfect companionship to each other to hold the redwood
and all the things that are a barn up to the constantly changing Montana sky
where I sit writing just a few feet below it.
The rocks also form a huge basement for the
barn, which is kind of unusual because not many barns have a basement. The
basement to this barn is another world best left to another time.
Later…
To get to my writing room high in this barn
there is a flight of stairs that are almost metaphysical in their
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