I have been emotional for most of the day. One would think I was being hormonal or something, but that time of the month has just come and gone, and really, I think I have a good reason right now for randomly laughing and crying. Part of me is full of this all-consuming joy that makes me want to sing my praises to the heavens; another part of me is excitedly bouncing along to U+K (or some other crazily upbeat song on my playlist); and the last part of me is more quiet, more contemplative, more awash with memories and fragments of the past. I am smiling, though, and my heart is gladder than words can say. It is a special day. I have no doubt it has been and will continue to be a very special wedding.

The music on my playlist has been an interesting mix for the last 24h or so, and with each song there are associations, emotions, and an odd sort of distance - because old music always carries a bit of the past, and likewise, a bit of each song also remains attached to the past in its own way. And the past is not now; that could not be more evident than on a day like today. So much has changed and so much more will keep changing. There is no going back, nor is there much reason or desire to do so. But the memories remain - never perfect nor complete but there nonetheless, and always a reminder of how long, unexpected and amazing the journey is.

I have done very little today except reply briefly to a few emails, think about random things, eat dessert with the family (while listening to Andres sing Spanish versions of various anime songs - including the Sailor Moon theme - and do so excellently), and rewatch Fruits Basket because I had not done so in years. It was a series I discovered in the same year I met her, a series we both watched and cried over, a series that has an almost horrifically bad first episode but also some precious moments that have stuck with me since and helped shaped my philosophy on life. This was one of those moments; we talked about that a lot, I remember, the choosing to live with painful memories rather than forgetting them. There was more reason and more need for that back in the day.

Over the years, I guess time has proven that one does indeed become stronger, that one can indeed change, that winter does indeed turn into spring for those patient and tenacious enough to hold on. Today is a beautiful example of that - I do not really need to say anything else, ne? More than anything, I simply feel a deep-seated joy that makes me want to pray with all my heart. There is just so much to be joyful and grateful for. Love is an amazing thing.

I think I will end this entry here, though. It really does not say anything much, but I had to write something; there is a lot of emotion rushing all over the place and also, in the end, how could I not write something today? But everything that needs to be said has either already been said or would be impossible to express in words at all, so...


My best wishes to someone very dear to me, today and for always. May the storms and hurdles make you stronger, the years draw you closer and each day bring you more laughter, more wonder, more joy. With you being who you are, I have no doubt that you will learn from and grow through and make the most of your life together. I love you, and I am so very proud of and glad for you.

May you stay together, いつも...

Everything happens in cycles, ne? There is a time for winter, as surely as there is a time for spring. One cannot exist without the other, not really; for spring to come again, it must first pass on and be lost to the fields of white. (Not that I mind, being someone who prefers winter. It just sounded a bit odd when I switched the two around because spring usually has more positive connotations.)

And yet as surely as spring will disappear, it will also come again - but by then, it will be a different spring, with echoes of the past visible alongside the freshness of the unknown in every new burst of green. It is never possible to predict in advance what will regrow, what will not and what will come to life for the first time, but every spring is beautiful nevertheless.

To try to hold onto spring is to lose not only spring but also summer, and fall, and winter. Then even when spring comes again, it will not feel like spring because it will not be the same spring, and with the ghosts of the old spring held so near, it becomes almost impossible to realise the joys the new one could bring, or even to recognise it as that which was long sought after.

There is a season for everything under the sun. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there are many seasons for everything, and that as surely as there will be more springs, there will also be more endings, more laughter, more tearing down, more romance. Nothing truly ends, even though everything does. The two sides of the same coin are really just one.

It would be hard to imagine light without darkness, or life without death; likewise, without times when some things simply are not, it would be hard to comprehend it when they actually are. But the times without something make up half the time there is, ne? So instead of thinking of them as times without, I would rather think of them as times with the counterpoint of that something, and just as much a part of life as the other times. Every minute lived is still a minute, whether it be winter or spring.

My favourite season is and has always been autumn, with its quiet reflectiveness and its leaves of golden red. I love it for the beauty to be found in loss, in the temporal, in the fading away of what was - for only in dying do the leaves transform into their multi-coloured glory, and only in death do they flutter downwards to pile on our lawns, on our streets. To me, that sums up much of what I believe about life:

Like shooting stars - like life, really - much of what is precious is so because they do fade, and are fading. The season leaves me at peace with transience, and more able to find hope in all those fleeting moments that seem to disappear even as I reach towards them. I remember during autumn that sometimes, life is all the more beautiful because there is no way to cling on. If I wish for love, or joy, or anything else, I have to grasp them within each passing second. And when I do touch them, if only for that instant, there is the jolt of having truly cherished something, of having lived.

Autumn passes into winter, the season I think of as one of renewal. Everything is, if not dead, then dormant; all one can hold onto is the memories of what once was, and the faith in what once more will be. The stillness really does strike me deeply. If autumn teaches me to appreciate transience, winter leaves me enjoying opportunities to start anew. There is so much potential buried in winter for those who look for it, so many seeds that will blossom as surely as spring will arrive - and nothing has quite begun yet, which means that all the possibilities still exist. Everything that is also means something else cannot be; if I am in Tokyo, I cannot simultaneously be in Australia. Winter, to me, is almost breathtaking in how little is and thus, how much can be.

And then it, too, passes, and spring arrives again with the melting of the winter snow, and what seemed initially to be a path of loss and desolation appears in hindsight to be a path to life.

'What does snow become when it melts?'
'I don't know. Water?'
'No. It becomes spring...'


N.B. I write at least one entry on the seasons each year, and quote myself entirely too much, but the more some things change, the more others truly do stay the same.

執子之手盟誓續
琴瑟和諧三世緣

One smile, then she never returned.

One of my tutoring students lent me a picture book today. 『向左走.向右走』 by Taiwanese author 幾米 (Ji Mi). I was in something of a weird mood at the time, so any distraction seemed good; I crossed my legs on the half-demented stool and began reading. By the end, I not only felt sufficiently distracted, but I was actually kind of okay. And so I sat down and translated the thing.

The literal translation of the title would be 'walking to the left, walking to the right'. I initially used 'turn left, turn right' because it sounded better, but in the end, I stuck with a condensed version of the literal. The story revolves around a man who likes going right and a woman who likes going left. They seem fated never to meet, but obviously, they do. XD I could sum up the plot in one sentence, but really, that's not the point. I just like it because it makes me smile.

Warning: I did not scan the pictures. I photographed them. My scanner is slow and crashy and evil. Therefore, you may find thumbprints, datestamps (when the camera auto-rotated my shots without telling me) and glares on the first few pages because I didn't remember to turn the flash off. I may or may not fix these later. They aren't too bad, though.

Now, without further ado -
Walking Left, Walking Right


Translation dedicated to those among you who have any chance of guessing what - or who - some scenes reminded me of. =P