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.