Twisted Fates

Fucking poignant.

That's how my friend described a moment this morning, as he sat gazing out at acres of natural beauty while life, as he's known it, anyway, unravels. He said it without even a hint of irony, though I suppose I could be wrong about that, since the message arrived by text. 

He's more serious these days than he used to be, back when we were in high school and we were convinced we -- and everybody around us -- were invincible. Substitute ridiculous for poignant, for starters, and that's how we were, back then. 

"Fucking poignant" has stuck with me since this morning, as I knew it would. I told him right off the bat I was stealing it. As I trudged through the realities of my day, I came back to the phrase several times. I imagined the perfect confluence of great joy and overwhelming sadness that had overcome my friend, caused him to pair up such incongruous words. 

He sent me a picture. It was dawn there, where he was, but it could have been dusk (had I not known better). The time when night and day intersect, the push and pull of light against dark. If I had to label the picture, I would have chosen "serenity." Or maybe, come to think of it, "fucking poignant." 

While I'm pilfering phrases, I'll work on the next thing he said --something about pondering the difference between fate and destiny. He's way ahead of me on that one. I've never really given it much thought, though my gut tells me if I had to choose, I'd go with destiny. At least I might have a fighting chance at shaping it. I wonder if that's what my friend was thinking, that he had arrived at this place not because of some malevolent twist of fate but because he had unwittingly prepared himself for it. This confluence of great joy and overwhelming sadness, of night and daylight, of being at once the shaper and the observer of ones own destiny. Whether you like it or not. Fucking poignant. Weirdly serene. 

Silencing Voices, in a Place Far Away

I know almost nothing about anime, except that it is colorful and vibrant and originated in Japan. I don't really get it, which is more a function of ignorance than any sort of rational assessment.

When my son was getting ready to move to Japan after he graduated from college, I had not so secretly hoped that maybe the tsunami and the nuclear disaster only a year earlier might dissuade him. I knew better, but it never hurts to dream. I comforted myself with the thought that a tsunami would never strike again in the same place. Right. And the nuclear plant glitches, well, they can certainly be fixed. I like to think. 

On a map, Japan seems so small, so fragile. Even after a half a dozen visits, I still think of it as an inch long strip of vulnerability, a heartbeat away from earth's next tectonic shift, spitting distance from Kim's missile playgrounds. I experienced an earthquake a few visits ago, and though the sensation of swaying back and forth in a high rise was disconcerting, and the deafening sound of the push alert on my phone, accompanied by what appeared to be a screaming text in Japanese, was frightening, my thoughts went immediately to my son, who was at work. He has assured me earthquakes are a daily occurrence. That was supposed to be comforting. It wasn't. 

When something bad happens in Japan, people tend to contact me, to make sure my son is okay. I suppose I'm not the only one who thinks it's small. This time, though, the disaster was close, in Kyoto, a sister to his home city of Kobe. Spitting distance for sure, or at least a short train ride away. A mass killing, 33 people killed after an arsonist destroyed Kyoto Animation. I knew my son was in Tokyo, but I texted to make sure. 

It's a studio that has produced some amazing and profound anime, he told me, including "The Silent Voice." I wondered how something that calls to my mind the "hello kitty" cartoons could be either profound or amazing, but I looked it up. The story is hardly cartoonish, and indeed sounds profound. I'm guessing the animation makes it amazing. 

I have grown accustomed to hearing about natural disasters in Japan, but this one is decidedly unnatural, at least on that inch long strip, which always strikes me as clean and orderly and crime free. Another misconception, up in smoke.