This was written in the week before I left for Japan.
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Tokyo is a peg in my formative time of my mid-twenties. The time spent there was brief, and yet, it was, for a lack of a better word, a time-capsule of emotion and thoughts of when I was becoming.
I didn't think my second time there six years later would had resulted in another solo trip; not by design, but by the definite stamp of visa rejection of my partner. I had imagined walking by the river hand-in-hand with him, and trying to embody more of his ability to be present to experiences (which is an opposite of my clenched fist and watchfulness). The excitement of traveling with someone you adore and to see him possibly marvel how Japan is like is now replaced by different moods. The eagerness to take a nice relaxing break from months of hectic work is still there; I have a tendency to drown myself in work, but after a while, the feeling is empty, conversations sterile and my mind feels narrowed. Perhaps a chance to have some time to myself to recalibrate, I thought, and then realised that was the same line occurred six years ago too.
The me, then and now, are strangers enough, that we could have a coffee and talked about how much things has changed. The wonderings, wanderings, the eventual leap whilst in my car, the ferventness and the subsequent loss.
A, I had wanted so much to tell you, hey, my name remained the same :). But alas, things didn't turn out as planned. It rarely does. On this trip, I will think of you. Of a serendipitous encounters the last time with a person who resembled you physically and more. She was older, and I thought about you frozen in time, and how you would had been. I don't think I could remember the exact path, and the subway tunnel I walked as I tried not to cry, and failed.
--------------------------------------------------------
Tokyo is a peg in my formative time of my mid-twenties. The time spent there was brief, and yet, it was, for a lack of a better word, a time-capsule of emotion and thoughts of when I was becoming.
I didn't think my second time there six years later would had resulted in another solo trip; not by design, but by the definite stamp of visa rejection of my partner. I had imagined walking by the river hand-in-hand with him, and trying to embody more of his ability to be present to experiences (which is an opposite of my clenched fist and watchfulness). The excitement of traveling with someone you adore and to see him possibly marvel how Japan is like is now replaced by different moods. The eagerness to take a nice relaxing break from months of hectic work is still there; I have a tendency to drown myself in work, but after a while, the feeling is empty, conversations sterile and my mind feels narrowed. Perhaps a chance to have some time to myself to recalibrate, I thought, and then realised that was the same line occurred six years ago too.
The me, then and now, are strangers enough, that we could have a coffee and talked about how much things has changed. The wonderings, wanderings, the eventual leap whilst in my car, the ferventness and the subsequent loss.
A, I had wanted so much to tell you, hey, my name remained the same :). But alas, things didn't turn out as planned. It rarely does. On this trip, I will think of you. Of a serendipitous encounters the last time with a person who resembled you physically and more. She was older, and I thought about you frozen in time, and how you would had been. I don't think I could remember the exact path, and the subway tunnel I walked as I tried not to cry, and failed.
