unmentionable blush

Did

AFFORDING GLANCES

It was something i could only describe as a moment, a breath in time. Nothing out of the ordinary. A special part of the day when time seemed to pause, time held its breath as another second waited in cue to clock out. The teenager id observed many times before, a food vendor from the bad sushi store, forever lost in thought.Hed rest his head on his arm, lip sinking top 40 hits as he cleaned out the refridgerator. Across the food court over the tops of 10 or 11 tables packed with diners a small girl, who did not yet deserve to be described as a woman worked busily with a mop and bucket low behind the counter glass filled with dry looking roast duck and oh so crunchy pork rinds . It was almost closing time. I looked up from a nearly empty bowl of Tom Yum quiot dii ael , the best in town i might add, my eye attracted to the many colors and shapes of the bad sushi vendors stall. I followed the teenage gaze across the court, a gaze shipped off and sealed with a smile. Not just a happy to be going home grin, or a happy to hear my top 40 favourite hit smirk, but a smile that said" I want you".Not an "i want you in the store room, rip your clothes off " i want you, but a "lets hold hands, walk along the banks of the river, talk all night, ill call you tomorrow" i want you.
His gaze dropped as she was too busy to notice, but then as she pushed forward on the mop she afforded a glance in his direction. His teethed flashed and she paused " is he looking at me?"
She smiled down at the soapy bucket of water. A smile meant for herself, maybe amazed that she could still attract attention in her absurd orange hat and rediculously oversized smock.

Turning to the side she had to check if it was real, from behind her glass cabinet she stole a sideways peek at the teen who had turned to pack another tray of fish, rice and seaweed into the fridge. She paused just long enough with her peek for him to turn back to face her again. This time it was her smile that fired off across the room. I could almost see his body temperature rising.

Please copy this into your note book. If i had 1 Baht for everytime id yelled that this year id probably have enough for an overnight local bus to Bangkok.

Never let yourself believe that you have already had the best day of your life.

I started counting hours again so i knew it was the right time to leave. It was always a good sign to leave when you wanted every hour to pass quicker than the last.
I tried with all my might to fall back into that dappled place, worked so hard to smell the dark black soils, feel the wind drifting through, and just for a second i thought i heard those distant pounding drums, just for a moment the earth moved to the thump of their naked feet. On this day it was not the naked dancers that filled the grove, nor was it the deep sigh of the sleeping giant or the grind of an awesome alien killing machine, not even the flap and glide of the man with paper crank wings. And although the at first the ring did resembled that of a long since past bicycle bell. I turned slowly towards the origin of a somewhat more tepid chime.
A bird, a distant memory. I started forward, quite positive that this forgotten moment was in fact drifting away from me ( or perhaps being stolen by the distance chattering voices of monkeys) . Tredding carefully between mossy pillows, parting delicately the tendrils of new green creepers, peering off into the distance.
My spirits lifted with a gush of fresh breath and it was at that moment that i realised the origin and stopped searching. That tingle did indeed return somewhere to the space between my sternum and chin. And then it appeared, not two meters from the tip of my nose....not far at all from the place i had planted my feet in the undergrowth....

Excess Baggage

It was my time again. Don Muang terminal 36 Biman Air to Tokyo.
Trying to escape the constraints of travel journal, pushing away from captains log or voyeurs manual. Grasping perspective in the endless expanse of monotonous blue terminal carpet. I guess it was meant to calm me before boarding the budget airliner that would be my coffin for the next 8 hours. I wondered who id sit next to...would we talk, would our eyes meet or would we do all we could to deny each others existence for the entire journey, or at least until we lost pressure and the oxygen masks dropped from the over head panel at which point we would hug and pray together for forgiveness, perhaps confess our sins and perhaps if it happened to be a pretty girl we might hold hands and embrace for one final moment of passion..

I screwed too long with my excess baggage to request my usual aisle (why the fuck does that word have an "s"???} seat, leaving me perhaps jammed between two rotten teethed tokyo smokers.

I imagined the next street i would walk down, the next snow fall i would crunch through. The first friendship i would make. I imagined a space that i had long since forgotten, reading a good book. The first window i would look out from. I committed to this journal. I needed it for a clear mind. I needed to be clear, I had no plan after touching down.
When you realise how much there is to know, you realise how really little you actually know...

THE GROVE

It was still cold in Kyoto. Spring had not yet trully arrived and the last of the gentle snow fell on the heads of the weekend visitors. The sun appeared and disappeared every so often, a squawking crow and miles of treed mountains marked his horizon.
I came to search and tried to find peace somewhere in my clouded mind. Self expression had worked in the past but today i wasnt so sure.


I closed my eyes and floated back into the grove, i held my head between my knees to block her out and the distraction of her love. I wanted her there with me in the quiet of the grove, without gentle longings and work, money or commute. I wanted peace to fill our hearts and let us open ourselves to each other. Id never bought any one into that green place. No one real any way. Maybe it was just a place for me, but thats maybe why i was alone. Because i never did share this place with anyone.


Id let things become so confused so quickly. they seemed to do that in my life. Baffled by extremes i tried to regain that simple peace that let me walk through life without fear or contempt. I saew a few of her many moods in the pictures that i held in my mind. She kept me from my quiet place, made my mind swell and exhale. What was the reasoning behind this infactuation. Why had i followed her for so far and so long. Why did i never let her go?.
What compelld me to want to fill our lives with romance and experience? Why was i willing to risk everything for her.Why do i think i finally found the one i was looking for, and why did i step on so many to reach her?.
I let these questions define me. She was the crease on my brow, the dark color under my eyes. She was the distant place i stared at when i let my mind wander. She seemed a fantastic improbable dream, the peak of some great mountain.A distant star. I wanted to take her hand and walk through that garden, enjoy the banks of the Kamo , take time under Shukagawa blossoms.

The air chilled me as i hurried from the park. Again the clouds covered the sun as i darted into the subway. I needed a friend where i had none. My goal seemed clear, but unfair and unrealistic. It would take time, long and painful. How best to spend this time it did not seem to matter, but in the interests of preserving my intergrity it would seem wise to make the most of it.

Id found myself sleeping on an itchy wooden board in an old Tarumi teahouse. A stingy penny grubbers excuse for an overpriced guest house. I wondered how Yajirobei and Kitahachi must have felt all those years ago on the road to Kyoto, all of the misadventure but for me none of the lust, for i had trusted a girl who would never love me. My own. My own personal Shanks nightmare

Later that night i met with an old man from Mishima in Shizouka-ken. He was on his way south along the coast of Kii-Hanto, passing by Hiroyukis house in Owase city in the Mie Prefecture.
I had been amusing myself with the second part of book seven of the Thomas Satchell translation of Ikku Jippensha's Hizakurige, when the sliding door of the guest room squeaked open.
The old man from Mishima was on the 8th day and somewhere near his 700th km of a cycle pilgramage to Engyou-Ji in Himeji and had decided to take a nights rest at the teahouse by the sea in Tarumi. We chatted briefly and he left me with a dusty travel tale and returned quickly afterwards with four tall cans of local beer , something that turned out to be beef tongue and a packet of smoked cheese.
The two of us sat right there on the floor resting against our beds and shared what tales we could in a mixture of Japanese and English. We poured over maps and enjoyed sometime away from our daily lives. His generosity that evening restored something in me. It gave me back some confidence. I needed to remain in this strange yet cormfortable place. It reminded me i was only alone as i wanted to be.
After our second can he nodded slowly and in broken English mumbled more to himself 'so tired'. By the time i cleaned away the last of the mess he was snoring gently in his bed occasionally muttering something in his own language. I never got to see him again.　

I imagined he'd made an early start, as some travellers do, on his way to the ferry bound for Awajishima.

SKATE PANTS

There i was dancing around with my fly down in my baggiest pants.
'That sure was a great joint. I should come here more often'.
These were my skate pants, these pants flapped when i flipped, they are the pants that hide your shoe perfectly and these are the tracks that keep you going all night.
We saw each other across the floor. It was crazy that night. My acid had me...in this fucking place... I couldnt stop moving. This pill turned into ecstacy. It was a smile that could break a man, her face in the shadows amongst the crowd. I just couldnt stop moving my feet, my legs, my hips...every part of me. I was just smiling so hard.
I couldnt stop myself running my fingers through my hair and across my face. And there she was in that second between laser and strobe and ultra violet clouds of smoke and heat and beats.

The track like touches me...im like 'WHAT???!!!!. We dance across this ..this place.. My feet, they just cant fucking stop moving, that sound of my pants flapping and there she was..right there, right fucking there, man, the lights that night, the lights. My face.My hair

I step toward her and back, back again almost forward. The track freezes us all and then something in the distance beats radiated. It had me smelling her air. Then this beat, this chirp, i just couldnt stop my feet, and there she was.. but like SHES 10 cm AWAY.
Shes right there. Shes really moving..she cant stop. I stop touching my face and hair and cut the air around her, my arms, i drift away and its just me, but i havent moved and shes right there and her lips are against mine, its her hair and mine and this track, it was made for us for this moment.

I never wanted it to end, this moment. The track winds up so hard we cant stay still long enough to kiss for more than a moment between moments. The trance has me so wound up that ive totally lost control. I step back to her left, right back forward. I was fucking up there man and the smiles and those beats and that acid those eyes. The dream, those fucking smiles.
I saw her again that night as we piled out onto the deserted street. We stopped and stared and smiled and she was gone.

OPENING DAY
I m trying my hardest to remain positive. Its not always easy.. I mean i cant complain, my life is fairly much perfect. It actually seems like i have some degree of control. I realised alot and had begun to accept things. I found some regret in this acceptance. There was a time when i wouldnt accept anything but the perfection i was aiming for.

I had a job and an apartment, i mean im not saying i was without wants, far from it, but things came to me. They just did.

On many occasions i had found a reason to dispute the use of mobile phones and their users who seemed to spend most of their lives with a tiny telephone glued to their ears. However on this occasion, whilst i surveyed the store shelves of my local market in Shukagawa the vibration in my pocket could only mean one thing.
I felt like i had waited weeks for this call, well actually i had. It had been two weeks since we had spoken. Shed caught me chill in front of the fluoresent lights of the poultry section as i was contemplating my next meal. I thought about ignoring it and calling back another time, but this was not a girl that i would ever think about ignoring. She deserved at least to be chosen over a selection of plumb pink chicken peices. No matter how hungry i was.
I took a second to look at the small display on my telephone-but i neednt have. I knew it was her all along. I think i just liked the look of her name. It kind of excited me, the way some girls names do. I couldnt think of any names except hers at that moment, but some girls names just excite me. I cleared my throat, and wondered how i should best sound. I wanted to let her know i was frustrated at not having spoken to her for weeks, but i also wanted to sound cool and non-chalont. I was desperate for her but for some reason it seemed important that she should never know.


FRESH PRODUCE

We struggled through the first few seconds until we could judge each others mood. This was why i usually hate telephones, its so hard to judge someones mood without seeing their facial expressions. She sounded interested....she laughed alot, but not a stupid laugh, an im interested sort of a laugh. I didnt have to try hard to make her laugh, but i did try. I felt it was important to make her feel comfortable. I didnt chase her laugh with stupid sorts of corny jokes or any crap like that, just with happy stuff that made nice , smart people laugh. Like the way you laugh when you hear something that just sounds good and makes you feel happy and you cant help but laugh.

After five minutes of this she told me she really liked speaking with me. I told her that i also really liked talking with her and that i was very happy that she called.
She asked me all sorts of stuff about different things, and i asked her about alot of different things as well.
We both sounded very interested, i think. After maybe 15 minutes we arranged to meet at the station in Okamoto on Sunday at 7pm. She told me she liked Okamoto and that it was near her work so she could meet me as soon as she finished. I told her that it sounded perfect..maybe that sounded bad... i didnt want to sound too keen, but i also didnt want to sound too cool or non-chalant. I kind of bit my lip and my arm hurt from holding the telephone to my ear, so i played it cool and said "yeah, that sounds good, ill see you on Sunday at Okamoto..7pm"
She told me again that she really enjoyed speaking with me. Maybe she was just blowing smoke up my ass, but she had no reason to, and we both sounded really interested.

I said goodbye in this cutesy kind of cheesy voice which i regreted using right away, but she replied in this really nice cutesy voice...the kind of voice that sounds like the person wants to keep talking but couldnt because i was shopping or she really needed to do something. Thats another reason i dont like mobile phones so much, I always seem to get caught up iline i could maybe lay back on the sofa or something and talk for hours and watch TV at the same time or something. Not that i wanted to watch TV.n conversations in stupid places like in front of the poultry section. At least on a land


The Question she had asked me a question right there in isle 5.. Shed asked me what was more important to me, to be loved or to love. Wed thrown around a few ideas, she talked with percentages and had kind of lost me. I guess i was really looking for a true answer. I told her that id think about it.
I say that sometimes, you know how people say that sometimes..that theyed think about it, and you dont know if they really ever will. Its actually something i just say sometimes when i couldnt think of an answer i was happy with.
Well, a week or so had passed, and actually i had thought alot about that question. We'd asked each other alot of questions that night and i remember that i probably said id think about it on a few occasions.. She was the kind of girl you wanted to give good answers to, and i guess i was acting kind of desperate looking for hidden meaning in her cryptic questions imagining every answer was shaping our potential future together. What a desperate way to feel about a conversation.
Anyway id realised in the last week that it was more important for me to give love than recieve love.. I mean, i had people that loved me, and i didnt really seem to care... But the girl i thought i loved was unable to recieve me, and that hurt and made me feel frustrated and made me feel incomplete.
I mean when someone loves you, its pretty easy to take that love for granted, i mean, well a whole bunch of people could be loving me at this very instant and i couldnt really care less, but the one person i wanted to feel MY love seemed unable to even honestly call herself my friend.And i mean i just had this love inside me for this certain person, and the idea that she didnt want anything to do with it just kind of cut cut me up. It really cut me up.
And i mean ..WOW...I guess this is the time for acceptance-time to just accept and forget five years, but you know this wasnt a girl you just forget. Some girls you just cant forget, you dont want to forget. And accept that its just maybe enough to know that you knew her, or accept that like this sentance my relationship with her was going to end at any moment.