Tuesday, September 05, 2006

tsukareta

...means 'i'm tired.' in a good way, mostly. my pop and brother are here visiting, and my mother's siblings have taken such good care of us that we're all fecking knackered. it's strange, my brother and i have noticed, that despite how close these siblings are and how tight and challenging their childhood and upbringing was, they don't keep in better contact. some of our cousins have explained it by saying how busy everyone's lives are, an incredibly valid point in a city and country where the work ethic – or at least the obligation to be present – is so insane.

there are three of us cousins who are the same age, one of whom took us out to a french dinner tonight with his friendly wife. neither my brother nor i had seen him since our last visit with our mother about eighteen years ago. to me he is unrecognizable from the teenager i last met, his face has changed so much. but living on separate continents for so long, not seeing many photos of one another, not really knowing the who of who each other is, naturally distances us. when shown photos on my brother's camera of our youngest cousins, this cousin was shocked at how old they've gotten, and yet they live – at maximum – half an hour from each other.

then again, my brother brought up the fact that he and i rarely see our cousin on our dad's side. for several years, my brother lived about half an hour from him in LA, and during that time they never saw each other. yet whenever we all meet, it's such a pleasure and such a visceral feeling of kinship that i wonder why we don't make it happen more often. and it's the same reason – we're so busy with our own lives, we don't really make the time for these important undercurrents that make us who we are.

in the same sense, it's strange how close you can become with people in certain circumstances. in one month i've made such good friends; at the end of that month, we all moved out of our shared house at the same time and only i remain for the next few weeks. it feels almost silly to be so sad that someone has left when you've known them such a short time. but, so it is.

and so i am exhausted. tomorrow morning i send my best boys off to the airport and back to cali, and after that? perhaps some iced oolong tea, a long nap and possibly a rainy day in tokyo if i'm lucky. but, anyway, without rain or the perfect day or bags of cash to spend on trinkets and clothes, i have been pretty damn lucky.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

cousins are so close
I can see them anytime --
will see them later...

but now I'm tired --
so much to finish before
I sleep forever...

6:30 PM  

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