Once You've Been to Japan, You'll Always Want to Go Back

You sent me a letter about your wish to go abroad. You mentioned some places. There’s one place to be visited, one place to be stayed. It's interesting because instead of you describing what you're going to do if you went there or why you wished to go there, you describe how other people described it for you.

I've never visited any places in the world. That's my dream too. I've been staying and living in just one country. So, I have no clue about the place you mentioned. About Japan. But you wrote to me about how other people visited there and how they felt about Japan.

But I know you have had this connection with this since a long time ago. Since you're a kid. I remember when we read a Japanese romance together. We're still in elementary school at that time. In our hometown, there's no big or fancy bookstore. But there was one place that sold like almost every random item. Sometimes, you kill time there after school, just looking around, without thinking about buying anything. So, on a bright Sunday, you took your mom there, and she let you pick a book to bring home. Oh, you never knew that book made you in love with words until now.

We read it in the evening and in just a few hours, we finished it. Since that day, you told me, you believed you could read any books and of course, you wished you had the ability to bring the book home. To read them.

Oh, did you remember the book that one teacher lent to you in senior high? Wasn't it written by a Japanese author? It was the time you started to write more, but that amazing teacher, to be a great writer needs to read more great books. You weren't the greatest student back then. You didn't even show up in a magazine or big poster for a school event. You didn't do the speech for homecoming or even got your name on the list. But, we both agree, books choose their reader. 

You were probably 15 or 16 at that time, but you already read the surrealist writing from Japan.

And the person you're in love with when you're in senior high told you how that person really loved Japan. Oh, you really wished you could go there and experience whatever your lover told you.

But, here we are now. Instead of getting a flight to go there, you wrote me a description of how a manager told you how beautiful Japan is. You told to yourself, "I knew it since I was 15,"

The manager didn't explicitly tell you the details about the restaurant they visited, or the smell of the land, or how cold the wind was. The manager didn't say anything about the people or transportations.

The manager only shook her head while the hand was still writing something on the paper, and repeatedly told you, "Oh Japan is great," a pause. Even a pause could describe how beautiful Japan is, you wrote. Then the manager continued, "...once you have been there, you will always want to go back, "Oh darling, you always tell me you don't know why you wanted to go there. And I keep telling you, it's fine. We all don't need a reason to do something, to go somewhere, sometimes. It's just happened. It just keeps calling you. Maybe, somewhere, somewhat, there's something there for you. Or even nothing. I think, for your own sake, just follow it, my dear. My dear, just follow it.

On your next birthday, I would buy you more Japanese literature so you could feel more Japan in you. Your body may not visit there yet, but your head has. Remember the favourite poem you always tell me?

Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you :But when the leaves hang trembling, the wind is passing through.

Let the wind carry these wings, carry these wings to you.

Written by, Belen Amanda