Japan

There are only two ways of categorising belongings: by type of item and by person.

The Tale of the Heike?”

I break off a piece to try. It doesn’t taste at all like castella. This is glutinous and tough, like rubber. What did I do wrong? I can’t understand it. I thought I followed the recipe exactly. While chewing on an overly sweet horrible lump, it suddenly strikes me as funny and I fall about laughing. I’m not devastated; if anything I feel good.

And when you’re stuck, something deep in your brain will start thinking for you … That’s the only way to look at it. It’ll be some experience from the past that you don’t recall, some fusion of a variety of things, something that will make sense to you if you do it in a specific way, something that appears to be at the limits of your ability … And

Now, though, I realize that all I can place in the imperfect vessel of writing are imperfect memories and imperfect thoughts. The more the memories of Naoko inside me fade, the more deeply I am able to understand her.