ALL ABOUT HER



She likes to listen carefully when people talk more than talk with people.
When she listen to people, she always asks and answers to herself in her heart.
    "No, that's not it. You are wrong."
    "Yes, that's true. You are right."
She is quite willing to give an advice to her neighbors who need to be comforted. She has a knack of making people feel at home, setting their minds in order and finding their way soon.

She prefers the sky in which gray clouds hang low to the birght one with sun. She is actually a kind of person who is troubled with a dark side of life. When she passes through the inner-city area near her house, she gives a wink to shabby looking-kids who have though and skinny faces, clear and melancholy eyes. She can easily figure out their parents' earnest wishes to hand over the decent lives to their children. A number of thoughts of her young days crroses her mind whenever she thinks about it.

She is so sensitive that she cannot control herself sometimes. So whenever she feels it, she finds herself enjoying a chaotic situation. Sometimes she goes to farmer's market to see many merchants' healthy smiles, shouting, and and more or less wicked commercial spirits even if she has nothing to buy. She likes it. She can meet vigorous and highly motivated people there. On the way home from market, she realizes her shopping basket filled with healthy will for life instead of something like food.

She likes raining. Whenever rain begins to sprinkle, she goes out and wanders aimlessly around the street with umbrella. She enjoys the music that the patter of rain on the umbrella makes. When her feet hurt after walking in the rain for a while, she droppps into cafe and sips hot coffee as sitting by the wide glass window and enjoying rainy street. If the old familiar tunes of saxophone that makes her feel melancholy comes to her ears right at the moment, she becomes the happiest woman in the world.

Recently she got another thing that makes her happy. That's sea. The wide and unlimited sea always embraces her without any questions when she comes in a disgruntled or forlon mood. She can hear the voice of sea. The sea always talks in whispers in her ear, "Please be generous! Please think over much more about giving love than receiving. Open your hear with sympathy for the sorrow and suffer."  While seeing waves rushing upon the sands with grinning her white teeth, she manages to control her wrath no matter what. After then she realize that she has been so busy in feeling sorry for herself and she forgot how much she has to be grateful for. She begins to think about poor and lonely people who stay awake even in the midnight in fear obstacles in their lives.

She likes white chrysanthemums, black color, mist in the early morning, late autumn, French movies, black and moist nose of dog, baby's mouth which seems like dropping spit right now, calm surface of lake, brownish bread, bluish moonlight, a dead pronunciation of Germany, the time when evening sun cast long shadows, Rachmaninoff, Herman Hesse, Vincent Van Gobh, Bee Gees, Tom Hanks, etc.....

Apparently she is living a comfortable and problem-free life. Her husband is a very sincere person. He is a hard-working person. He does his best to provide plentiful and abundant life to his family. Her two children are brilliant. Her daughter and son both are outstanding students in their classes. They also have many talents for painting, playing musical instruments, origami, and writing, etc... She perseveres in her efforts to be a good wife and wise mother. However she cannot help feeling a sense of emptiness in her heart. She often dreams of breaking away from the routine of her daily life.

She is responsible for the care of family members and a mountain of house chores. The accountability for making a comfortable atmosphere around her house is hers.  She has a heap of things to do everyday. She thinks she is just going through the motions. Sometimes she is sick and tired of her monotonous and tedious life.

When she realizes she cannot remember someone's name that she loved long time ago, she gets sunk in the depth of despair. How much heartbroken she felt when she parted from him! She shouldn't let his name fade out of her memory. She is impatient about her all dreams thinning in the distance. She is angry with her quiet and unexciting life. She has pity on herself.

He, who is called "someone" by her, is the one that understood her better than any others. He used to notice her complex emotion and ideas. When she once excliamed with delight seeing it began to rain, he just smiled with a serene smile of his. He quickly noticed whenever she went through ups and downs due to her delicate feelings. When she looked exhausted physically and mentally, she could take comfort enough from his concerned look. She still remember that he stared at her with his eyes full of a flaming sunset when the blue sky just began to turn a rosy sky. Needless to say she already knew his solitude even his sufferings behind his kindness and smile. it was the same with him. She got a view of the world with maturity of early forties from him even if she was in twenties. He was the type of person who always plunged into his own work with enthusiasm. He couldn't stand people who compromise with injustice. He often drowned his wrath and loneliness in drunk. He became talkative a little and criticized the way of world while he was drinking. He laughed at himself as well as made a fool of himself. Sometimes he seemed to defend himself with his erudition and profound knowledge lest his weaknesses should be exposed. After drinking party, he said good-bye to other drinking companions with his shoulders drooping. He looked solitary because people didn't understand him. But some people, who knew him well, grasped his hidden sensibilities and feebleness at the bottom of his heart.

When she said to him about her plan to get marry as feeling a surge of sorrow coming over her, she saw him listening what she said with a quiet smile. She knew he cloaked his grief with a smile. He was such a person just like that. Actually she didn't expect his special response.

At last she left him and got married. Frankly speaking she already knew someday she would be left alone even if she wanted to stay with him, so she did it prior to him. Even after all these years he still  appear in her dream like nightmare. He always stood in the snowing field and kept watch her in silence without catching. Sometimes we find a faded colored petal while we are turning over the leaves of a dusty book from the bookshelf. We come across into our mind some memories while we are looking for the petal's past smell and beaty, the past day's prosperity. Yes! Now he is a being for her as if a faded colored petal. He always reminds her of past young days. Sometimes beautifully... sometimes brokenheartedly...



At last it is the time to lay the past to rest. She knows it well too much. Hugging her old memoried to her chest,she has to release her hurt and her anger and her grief. In these days she thinks more about giving than receiving love. She has a lot of responsibilities for her family. She has her own family that she must love. Sometimes her rights are nothing in the presence of her family's. The title of housewife or mother compels her to give up her dreams. Too many times have passed since she didn't act for herself entirely. She often has a fever and chills. She suffers from a migraine, too. At that time she usually takes an anodyne.

She doesn't want her children to be latchkey kids. Occasionally she finds herself who seeks after her aim in life from her children. She has tied her children to her own desire and hopes. But she knows that it is temporary. Her children will be grown up soon and they want to be free from their mother's concern. When that moment comes, she is supposed to let them go and make their own choices. She wonders what she will feel when they yearn for their own freedom.
    "Am I willing to release them without awakening feelings of regret?"
Evidently not. But the time to feel like that surely comes. Night after night she cannot get to sleep for a long while. She tosses and turns in the bed.

She knows she wants to have a bigger one no matter what and often becomes nervous to this time. To lift out of the dark morass of confusion, she closes her eyes and listens the voices from her heart, and she can collect her scattered mind. She makes efforts to throw out her heavy dreams filled with greedy and adherence into the water. But she still dreams of a certain something  in her heart of hearts very often.  (2002)