Sunday, November 25, 2012

Hidemi’s Rambling No.443

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From kindergarten to the lower grades, I had suffered insomnia. I hated going to kindergarten and then to school too strongly to sleep on school nights. As the morning to go there approached, I felt more and more nervous and tense. I would be wide awake in futon no matter how eager I was to fall asleep, watching glittering patterns on the back of my eyelids for hours. Tears ran through my cheeks into my ears during those long nights. When it dawned and the room was filled with the gray of the morning, I could finally doze awhile. I slept beside my grandparents as my parents were occupied with my little sister in a different room. Before going to sleep, I would try to be near my mother as long as I could because she used to be the last one that retreated to her bedroom at night. But soon I was to be prodded into going to my grandparents’ room to sleep. I once found the courage to confide to my mother that I was having insomnia. She scoffed at it and said anyone could sleep by just closing his or her eyes. Her advice was to close my eyes. I wondered how dumb she thought I was, since I did so to sleep every night. She didn’t take it seriously and so I kept staying awake on weeknights secretly. Sunday nights were the worst. The thought that a long week at school would start next morning made it undoubtedly impossible for me to sleep. My grandparents used to watch TV in futon before going to sleep. Their favorite drama was on Sunday nights and the end of the drama meant my grandmother fell asleep. I can still hear in my ears the sad tune of the drama’s ending. My grandfather read a little after that. When the light by his pillow was turned off was a signal that he would go to sleep and I would be left alone awake in futon. One night, he noticed I wasn’t asleep in the middle of the night. “You’re still awake,” he was surprised. I confessed that I couldn’t sleep, and he simply said, “Don’t sleep, then.” While I couldn’t believe what I had just heard, he explained, “You don’t have to sleep if you don’t want to.” I had never thought that way. I didn’t have to sleep! Like magic, his words cured my insomnia and I have fallen asleep easily ever since…

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Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Hidemi’s Rambling No.442

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I like to spend my free time at a shopping mall. The first mall I ever visited as a small child was called Rainbow Town. When it was built, people made noise about it because it was the first underground mall in western Japan -probably the first mall either on the ground or underground. The neighbors and the relatives of my family asked, “Did you go to Rainbow Town yet?” as daily greetings. My grandfather was fascinated by the concept of a mall. He often talked with wonder about what an artificial town was like and how it could exist underground. Since the mall was located in the city next to ours, my grandparents and I finally went there one day by train. Although the destination was a mall, our purpose was rather sightseeing than shopping. My grandfather kept talking about his concern over sufficient air in the underground mall, while my grandmother got up early in the morning to fix lunch for all of us. We were headed for a mall as if we were going to NASA. The mall was crowded with cool, urban shoppers, and had a stream and a big fountain along the walk. I had never seen so many shops and restaurants gathering in one place. My grandparents were amazed that the mall was so bright with full electricity and decorative with water. They also couldn’t believe that there were restaurants, which used the fire to cook, though it was underground. My grandfather reminded me over and over that people and cars were passing through above us. Because all the benches were taken, we sat on the rim of the fountain for lunch. We had my grandmother’s handmade rice balls and Japanese tea from our canteen there. Right in front of us was a nice restaurant where many customers had their decent lunch and a good time. My grandfather said to me triumphantly, “Do you know how much they have to pay in there? They’re stupid!” We left for home without eating or buying anything at the mall. My first mall experience was dismal, but I love a shopping mall so much still…

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Saturday, November 10, 2012

Hidemi’s Rambling No.441

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As I take the communal spa in my apartment building twice a day, I regularly see the staff of the building or other residents. One morning, I bumped into a management staff member in the hallway. I had seen him for several times before, but never talked with him, except to exchange greetings. On that particular morning however, he said hello as if we were so close each other. He continued, “Gosh, I didn’t recognize you because you look so different today!” I had no idea what he meant since I always wear the same clothes and the same hairstyle when I’m headed for the spa. “Do I look different?” I asked, and he said, “Totally, you’ve changed!” Completely perplexed, I got out of mysterious conversation, convincing myself that he mistook me for some other resident. A couple of days later, I was taking the Jacuzzi in the spa when a woman approached me. She deeply appreciated me and said, “Thank you so much.” Again, I had no idea what she was talking about. I didn’t even recognize her. According to her, she had taken a bath too long the other day and fainted here, and I had helped her, which I never did. I told her that it wasn’t me but she seemed pretty sure it was me. I denied for a few more times and she left still looking dubious. I was puzzled by these two incidents and concluded three explanations: there is my look-alike in the building, or I’ve developed a split personality, or I like the spa so much that I’ve begun to sleepwalk there. Meanwhile, the woman, who claimed I had helped her, has been very friendly to me since then and chatted all along when she finds me. I would rather be alone and quiet like the days before…

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Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Hidemi’s Rambling No.440

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The family of my grandfather on my mother’s side used to be a landlord of the area and has lived on the ancestral land generation after generation. My grandfather succeeded the family when he got married with my grandmother. In the end, four generations lived together in the big house: my grandparents, their daughter and their son-in-low, their grandson and his wife, and their great-grandchildren. They had constant disputes but nobody could leave the house to keep their old family style. My grandfather was unconscious for weeks in the hospital when his time was drawing near. A couple of days after his family decided to turn off his life-support system, their house was burned down to the ground. It was my grandmother who caused the fire. A candle she lit on the Buddhist altar made something catch fire and spread all over. No one was injured but the police questioned my grandmother persistently. She went to the hospital to see my grandfather and repeated loudly in his ear, “The house was burned down! It’s all gone!” She told my mother that he heard her though he was unconscious, and he would die soon along with the house. As she said, he passed away the very next day. I attended his funeral, worrying about how devastated my grandmother would be, because my grandparents were such a nice couple. On the contrary, she was fine and somehow gleeful. I wondered if their relationship was my grandfather’s one-sided love. Considering her life, it’s possible that she had hated the house all those years since she married into the family. By the time the house was being rebuilt, she lived at a nursing institution with her daughter who had suffered from dementia and no longer recognized her mother. She herself gradually had health problems and spent the rest of her life in the institution. She died there and never lived in the new house…

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