Two Mothers, Journeying

We landed in Japan only (only!) eighteen hours after we left Chicago, but the better part of two full days had disappeared. It never ceases to be disorienting, this jump in days that happens somewhere over the Pacific.

It's my fifth trip here, and my friend's first. I assured her it was no big deal, getting around in a country where nobody looks the way you do, nobody speaks your language, and they don't make shoes large enough to fit your feet. I was lying -- not about the shoes, but about the no big deal part --but she knows that. 

Thankfully, Matt, my son, was with us to help work out the minor snafu with hotel bookings. Otherwise, my friend and I would probably still be growling silently at each other while we both stared helplessly at the hotel clerk, who stared back at us as if we were from another planet. With good reason; it can certainly seem that way sometimes, here. 

Today, we are on our own, while Matt is at work. I am the seasoned one, perfectly capable -- theoretically -- of getting us from Sannomiya to Shin Kobe to take the Shinkansen to Kyoto. She is still struggling with pronunciation, and I am guessing they all pretty much sound the same. I'm feeling a bit pressured, without my translator. I have grown accustomed to relying on Matt to point me in the right direction here, even tell me when and at how steep an angle I should bow. I am looking forward to dinner, when I can once again settle into my incompetency while he takes charge. 

It is difficult, sometimes, having a child live so far away. Even when he is twenty-eight years old, and would no doubt be spending little time with me if he lived closer. He is busy figuring out his life, wherever it takes him. As is the case with all three of my children, I simply love being in their presence, breathing the same air. I love listening to them, and watching them. I love imagining them when they were little, and marveling at the people they have become. 

I know how much of a luxury it is, for me, and for anybody who can do this, even if it's only a few times a year, at most. My friend and I raised our kids together, and we share a lot of the same memories. I can still imagine her sons when they were little, and she can do the same with my kids. She has lost one of her sons, and, almost three years later, here, on the other side of the world, visiting Matt with her, I imagine the bittersweet dissonance of fond memories and painful "what ifs." 

The best I can do, for my friend, is navigate the rails today, get us to Kyoto in good order, and back to Kobe in time for dinner with Matt. To eat some good food and drink some good wine, to get lost in our shared memories of all our children. To be in the presence of this tall, thin young man, the once chubby-cheeked boy, and marvel together as Matt inhabits a part of the world that neither of us can fully comprehend.