T: Once upon a Time in My Life

I heard these lyrics today to a song called "Once upon a Time" off of an album called "Adore" by a band called "Smashing Pumpkins." This song always gives me a feeling of nostalgia that few other songs can produce. I drove through two hours of lush beauty in Oita prefecture today and thought, almost constantly, about how this nostalgia illuminates an important piece of who I am (and perhaps explains why I am the way I am).

A few of my best buddies from college and I have labeled ourselves "nostalgic" people as if we were more nostalgic than usual. Of course I thought I might feel differently about that since I have not yet become completely nostalgic about college times (for some reason; although I feel it slowly coming on).

But then this song today made me realize just how much a kind of melancholic, yet very sweet, nostalgia matters to me. The Pumpkins song makes me feel the nostalgia acutely as if it were turning one person's memories into something as classic or magical as a fairytale (and that's exactly how they are to me at times).

So my life has occasional bursts of yearning, nostalgic emotion. Sometimes when I drive by a patch of bamboo that hangs over the slick, wet road I feel it. Natural things that are so beautiful and pass by so quickly....

And yet, this way of life is prone to side-affects. For instance, I also feel the sad things of life more than most people do... I feel the imminent loss of things in the future, the impossibility of holding on to things indefinitely. But, as I said earlier in an earlier post, to be able to lose means that you were able to have. So in the end, all is well (who knows, maybe you'll be reincarnated into a golden retriever that lived a hundred years ago and got to eat really good food for almost everyday of her life!).

And to throw a red herring at you I will declare another thing that I "hate" about this country: that the dental care here is even worse than it is in the UK. The other day I saw someone's teeth that looked more decayed than the teeth I have seen on human skeletons. That was shocking.... But what can you expect when no one seems to use fluoride around here and no one knows what floss is?

And still, more and more, I feel as though I am not done with my time in this country. Sometime in the near future I would like to return to a place like Kyoto or Nara (both in the culturally rich region of Kansai) and become an unemployed (or employed...), welfare-receiving, writer. I still haven't written my book yet and I promised myself I would; what better time to be a poor artist than right now as a young, family-less, welfare-enlisted man (I have paid into the welfare system in Japan this year so I am entitled to a couple grand of handouts or I could get them sent to me in the US...)?
. . .

In a sort of conclusion, my realization relating to nostalgia should help some certain folk (including my family) understand why I am the way I am. Or perhaps it won't. Or perhaps I am just trying to reconcile my desires with my identity. Anyhow, I am tired from the long day in the sun and the drive through the rain and I need to cook and eat dinner. (There was a much more perfect post for today in my head during the drive, but alas, weakness of body has not allowed it to be recalled and put it into words here (sorry)).