I don’t really like to single out particular blogs from the Japan-based blogroll to the right (I don’t feel it’s important to establish which ones I enjoy, and which ones I, well, enjoy less), but among my recent finds, I wanted to make special mention of (and offer encouragement to) Meladramas. Its author, Pamela MacCarthy, is an accomplished jazz vocalist and painter, and a Japan resident of 12-plus years. She’s only been keeping a blog for the last month or so, and sporadically at that, but what there is, I really enjoy. I’m hard pressed to describe her writing without resort to cliche, but for some reason when I was thinking about it Pound’s “petals on a wet, black bough” came into my head. Apparitions and impressions, with lots of space between the lines.
Of the sage writing included therein, MacCarthy’s entry for March 21st, occassioned by her teenage son’s birthday, resonated strongly with some feelings I’ve been having of late. She paraphrases a Chinese proverb:
You learn more about your own parents when you finally become one…
and writes, “Having a baby is a good way to get to know yourself.” Since Kaika’s birth two weeks ago, I have been thinking a lot about my parents, and looking through old family snapshots and letters in a new light. The joy they must have felt when I was born, the hopes and aspirations they must have thought, the worries and hardships they must have suffered through. At the moment these thoughts oppress me, I who for much of my adult life has so blithely sloughed off my parents’ love, especially that of my mother. There’s more to this story, of course, a lot more. For the moment, however, I lack the needed strength with which to further reflect on this, here, in public.