walk this world alone

I sit in my apartment, at the now-unplugged kotatsu. Bach cello concertos, my companion for the past two evenings, fill the air with a timeless beauty not at all at odds with the hodgepodge of papers and eclecticism that is my apartment. I am the only rhyme and reason that exists in this place; logical, since it is mine for however long I stay here and continue paying for it.

I was in Kyoto-proper this evening, arranging my dinner for tomorrow. I am at the age where things only happen for your birthday if you do them yourself; as much as one might wish to remain quiet about the event and be pleasantly but predictably surprised by the thoughtfulness of one's friends, it is much wiser to make one's own arrangements and avoid the potential disappointment that could result from one's friends not actually doing anything. Because they have a plethora of distractions each, after all.

I can on occasion be wise, though the childish pride that still lives within me rails against it. But it's just that stubborn pride that causes us to hurt ourselves, and then rage at a sourceless Other.

If I am ever hurt, I cannot entirely free myself of blame. Of course it's wrong for someone to hurt me, but if they have managed it then I have left myself open to that hurt. I like to think of it as a warrior's mentality: to gaurd yourself.

Having nowhere in particular that I needed to be, I paused on the Sanjo Bridge. Below, on the bank of the Kamo River, fire spun and twirled in swift arcs around the twisting bodies of the dancers, serpents and orbiting comets of orange flame. Drummers pounded out a rhythm that was music all by itself, the familiar boom-tekka-tek an external heartbeat. I took off my shoes and perched on a stone piling to watch-- the dancers, the flames, the drummers, their various friends, the audience, the passers-by. Such a convocation of people, many of them young. Guitar-toting hopefuls waiting for discovery, businessmen sipping at beer cans, tourists staring in wonder, families on their way to or from restaurants. A thousand stories, walking to and fro, as the dancers whirled and leapt, tossing their flaming staffs into the air and catching them again, as artfully self-concious as they could be while handling fire. Well aware of their own allure and reveling in it.

I am a writer, which means that I move in a world of stories. My own life is not a story, it is a thousand stories, none of them mine. I assigned names and identities to the characters who passed me by, memorized faces and roles, and wondered vaguely what they saw when they looked at me. Nothing that invited intimacy of any sort, of course; sometimes I wonder if what I am comes through to the point that other people can sense it, and it keeps them away. Or is the unloveliness of my face sufficent to discourage any attention whatsoever? I have walked unmolested in the dark hours, in the questionable sections of various jagged cities. Lopsided face, a body at least four hundred years out of fashion, skin alternately mottled and spotted, any gold or red in my hair losing out to muddy brown, disproportionate limbs, short and stubbed fingers . . . a thousand beginnings that never came to fruition . . . every piece of me a broken promise . . . and the focal point of my being: a writer's eyes, shifting blue-green-grey, calm yet inconstant. Remote. Always watching, and somehow forbidding both desired and undesired attention. Set apart forever, whether I will it or no.

I can't win if I fight against myself. I can't remake my being, even if I should wish to. I can't move from story-maker to story, cannot become the main character when I am not myself a character at all. I am meant to tell stories, not to be them.

This is not my life, this is a search for stories. I am not a person, I am a thing which exists to find stories, and to tell them.

how about a revolution

Thanks to various anonymous senders for my livejournal-related gifts! I shall treasure them in my heart long after their duration has expired.

Now that I have a paid account, what the heck do I do with it? Does this mean I should actually, you know, get a userpic? Um . . .

Hey, um, Majo, is your offer to make me an icon or two still open?

blood and water

From the Wikipedia entry on Toyotomi Hideyoshi:

Japanese grammar schools even today impart to children an intriguing story intended to offer an insight into the different characters of these three great historical contemporaries: Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. First a brief background:

Nobunaga wanted to unify the many mini-kingdoms of Japan and become sole ruler. An aggressive and brilliant military tactician and commander, he was a very impetuous man and not surprisingly, rather callous and coarse even toward trusted subordinates. He came very close to attaining his goal of a unified nation, but in the end his recklessness and closely associated lack of any real understanding of the men serving him eventually led to his assassination. Hideyoshi, on the other hand, as well as being a fine military commander, had long held a reputation for being a brilliant manipulator as well - an excellent reader of people: the very skill in which his boss, Nobunaga, was most sorely lacking. Hideyoshi's subtle methods in the long run thus proved far more successful than Nobunaga's brash methods and he succeeded where Nobunaga had failed, unifying the many separate domains into one country and becoming the first military ruler of a unified land. Tokugawa meanwhile, had long coveted the same position, but did not have the power base or support equal to Nobunaga or Hideyoshi, and thus could not compete with either; he had to settle for demonstrating his skill in the art of being patient - but in his case, the "all good things come to him who waits" folk saying could not have been more true: in the end, Tokugawa came to power after Hideyoshi, and his clan proceeded to rule the country for the next 200 years. Under the Tokugawas, the Samurai caste was eventually put out of work since regulations were issued which greatly curbed the use and even carrying of swords (this as a means of reducing potential rebellion - which was not always successful).

The story told in Japanese grammar schools today regards these three famous men, and their individual approach to a problem, as being faced with a songbird (known as a "Hototogisu") which will not sing. When asked what he would do in this situation:

* Nobunaga replies: "Kill it."

* Hideyoshi replies: "Make it want to sing", while

* Tokugawa replies: "Wait."