a quote I’d come across a few years back, one I’d never been able to put into practice.
“Let tomorrow come tomorrow,” I thought, waiting at the hotel for Naohiro, trying not to count the days left to us. So far I’d done a pretty good job of it, letting tomorrow come tomorrow. But it was difficult, this living in real time only, and not diluting it by looking back or skipping forward. No wonder it’s never really caught on with most people, I thought. It’s just too hard.
We had arranged to meet at one o’clock, after Naohiro’s final meetings with a group of French businessmen. But he arrived almostan hour late, looking exhausted. He apologized, telling me the negotiations took longer than he’d anticipated. Our plans were to visit Père-Lachaise, a trip I’d looked forward to all week. But he seemed so tired I suggested we postpone our visit and instead have lunch at Madame Cedelle’s
salon du thé
just a few blocks away on the rue de Beaune. It was a place we had taken a fancy to: the food was excellent and the ambience an interesting combination of coziness and elegance.
Naohiro did not resist my suggestion to abandon the visit to Père-Lachaise. I took it to be a sign of how tired he was.
Outside, a damp wind blew down the streets and fast-moving gray clouds traveled past a barely visible sun. By the time we turned the corner into the rue de Beaune, a few raindrops were hitting the green carpets on the narrow sidewalks. It was the next-to-last day of the five extraordinary days in the
Carré Rive Gauche
and, against all reason, I found myself wondering if the rain would make the carpets grow.
When we arrived at the café, Naohiro immediately ordered tea. His face, even in the flattering rosy light of the tearoom, looked pale. I wondered if he was getting sick. The tea, however, seemed to revive him, and throughout lunch he seemed his usual self. With one surprising exception: he allowed himself to be more vulnerable than he had been in our past meetings.
“You know what is hard for me to accept?” he asked halfway through the meal. We had been talking about some of the advantages of age. “That the future will come and I will not be in it to see my children and their children grow into old age.”
He told me of once sharing a taxi in Tokyo with a stranger—a man in his fifties—who, for some reason, reminded Naohiro of his son, then twenty. “It is difficult to explain, but I felt myself to be in the presence of my son as he will be thirty years from now. It was avery real feeling—that I was riding in the taxi with my fifty-year-old son.” Naohiro looked away for a moment. “I have never forgotten that experience. It made me both happy and sad.”
I was moved by his words and the longing expressed in them. His willingness to reveal himself stirred in me a similar desire to speak openly of private thoughts.
“Has it ever occurred to you,” I asked him, “that we are shaped more by our sorrows than our joys? When I look back, it’s not the happy times that still have power over my life. It’s the places where things went wrong.”
Naohiro said nothing. But I didn’t really expect a response. It was enough to express such thoughts out loud, without feeling guarded or awkward.
“Sometimes I wonder if that’s all I add up to,” I said. “The sum of my sorrows.”
“And is that so bad? To be the person of your sorrows?” Naohiro asked. He paused for a long time, but I could see he was not finished. “I grew up near Hiroshima fifty years ago,” he said finally, “and I do not forget the person of that sorrow. I bend still to him with respect.”
It caught me off guard, this particular reference to his past. For some reason—perhaps because of my son’s lively young friends in Japan—I tended to connect the Japanese people with the prosperous, influential Japan that now existed, not the ravaged, postwar country of fifty years ago. This glimpse into Naohiro’s life moved
“Let tomorrow come tomorrow,” I thought, waiting at the hotel for Naohiro, trying not to count the days left to us. So far I’d done a pretty good job of it, letting tomorrow come tomorrow. But it was difficult, this living in real time only, and not diluting it by looking back or skipping forward. No wonder it’s never really caught on with most people, I thought. It’s just too hard.
We had arranged to meet at one o’clock, after Naohiro’s final meetings with a group of French businessmen. But he arrived almostan hour late, looking exhausted. He apologized, telling me the negotiations took longer than he’d anticipated. Our plans were to visit Père-Lachaise, a trip I’d looked forward to all week. But he seemed so tired I suggested we postpone our visit and instead have lunch at Madame Cedelle’s
salon du thé
just a few blocks away on the rue de Beaune. It was a place we had taken a fancy to: the food was excellent and the ambience an interesting combination of coziness and elegance.
Naohiro did not resist my suggestion to abandon the visit to Père-Lachaise. I took it to be a sign of how tired he was.
Outside, a damp wind blew down the streets and fast-moving gray clouds traveled past a barely visible sun. By the time we turned the corner into the rue de Beaune, a few raindrops were hitting the green carpets on the narrow sidewalks. It was the next-to-last day of the five extraordinary days in the
Carré Rive Gauche
and, against all reason, I found myself wondering if the rain would make the carpets grow.
When we arrived at the café, Naohiro immediately ordered tea. His face, even in the flattering rosy light of the tearoom, looked pale. I wondered if he was getting sick. The tea, however, seemed to revive him, and throughout lunch he seemed his usual self. With one surprising exception: he allowed himself to be more vulnerable than he had been in our past meetings.
“You know what is hard for me to accept?” he asked halfway through the meal. We had been talking about some of the advantages of age. “That the future will come and I will not be in it to see my children and their children grow into old age.”
He told me of once sharing a taxi in Tokyo with a stranger—a man in his fifties—who, for some reason, reminded Naohiro of his son, then twenty. “It is difficult to explain, but I felt myself to be in the presence of my son as he will be thirty years from now. It was avery real feeling—that I was riding in the taxi with my fifty-year-old son.” Naohiro looked away for a moment. “I have never forgotten that experience. It made me both happy and sad.”
I was moved by his words and the longing expressed in them. His willingness to reveal himself stirred in me a similar desire to speak openly of private thoughts.
“Has it ever occurred to you,” I asked him, “that we are shaped more by our sorrows than our joys? When I look back, it’s not the happy times that still have power over my life. It’s the places where things went wrong.”
Naohiro said nothing. But I didn’t really expect a response. It was enough to express such thoughts out loud, without feeling guarded or awkward.
“Sometimes I wonder if that’s all I add up to,” I said. “The sum of my sorrows.”
“And is that so bad? To be the person of your sorrows?” Naohiro asked. He paused for a long time, but I could see he was not finished. “I grew up near Hiroshima fifty years ago,” he said finally, “and I do not forget the person of that sorrow. I bend still to him with respect.”
It caught me off guard, this particular reference to his past. For some reason—perhaps because of my son’s lively young friends in Japan—I tended to connect the Japanese people with the prosperous, influential Japan that now existed, not the ravaged, postwar country of fifty years ago. This glimpse into Naohiro’s life moved
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