Pictures, feelings and fictions from my summer trip in Japan.

mercredi 1 février 2012

Tetsugaku no michi ( 哲学の道 ) Philosopher's Walk















Walking on Tetsugaku no michi.

She’s talking, talking, talking. Her words spreading like she is bleeding. Her little strawberry red mouth looks like a wound in her lovely heart shaped face. How can she talk so easily about everything all the time? I wonder. Why does she, when my own mouth hardly spit out dry words and short sentences?

Sometimes I feel like talking, spontaneously and freely, but my traitor throat strangles and holds back my words. Words are definitely not my friends. Silence is. Soft, warm, shrouding me like a thick wooly fog, I can wrap myself in its quietness and feel my senses blooming all around. My heart and breath are murmuring in my mind, the thin and light air sings in my ears.  I can feel the sun, wind and humidity through my skin. Feelings are easier in silence, more intense and deep. Senses are sharper.

As I think and say nothing, my sister’s still babbling – when she breathes is a big mystery to me – and isn’t noticing my muteness. Why would she, she’s used to it for years now. Her cherry red wounded mouth still shedding words like tears while walking beside me, she looks like a moving little cloud of sounds. I won’t fight. I let her be this little talking cloud, languishing for my dear silence but saying nothing. As usual.