What is the connection between artistic expression and the joy of living? How can one best live a literary life? This book is a collection of small word-projects. Each examines a book, a moment, a story that helps to deepen the author's literary adv...
I've always known the world to be something surreal, often paradoxical and surprising. I've gone back to my pictures from 2020 - not to recreate some sentimental memory of the pandemic - but rather to reflect on what it means to be alive, well and still unsettled in 2024. And also, as a reminder: the world will surprise you, the world will give you joys and pains. The good is often mixed with the bad. The tapestry of our lives is so poorly understood that we can only hope to approach each day and each new year with humility.
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I first came across this painting in the local gallery in my town (Omura, Japan at the time). I remember taking the photo because it was one of the most frightening paintings I had ever seen. A middle-aged clown, not quite happy, not quite melancholy. An everyday kind of clown, capable of everyday kinds of cruelty. What does it say about me and my character that this painting has captured my imagination? Perhaps it says that I can see the evil in the mundane, and that my paranoia about the horrors just around the corner is not always so easily dispelled.
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It was in March that I began my nature walks. I took long walks in the Kawatana area, the countryside, where there was more nature and open space than houses. It was a great way to get some social distance and still avoid the isolation of an empty apartment. This place was in an abandoned building in Kawatana in the hills. 2020 was to be the start of many walks in the Kawatana area, where I dreamed of one day owning a house and starting a small language school for children. It would be an end to my years of restless wandering. Although, if I am honest, apart from the horror of the world unravelling, coming to an end, turning into something unrecognizable... I actually enjoyed my life quite a lot: my walks, my work on my novel "Statues in the Cloud", my running, my jobs. It always was: It was the best of times / It was the end of days?
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But there were always those quiet walks that made me feel like everything would be okay. Omura Bay and the quiet streets of Kawatana made me believe that there was a peaceful logic to the world beyond whatever drama was gripping our lives at any given moment. 2020 gave me an appreciation for the simple power of walking, observing, breathing, and not overreacting to the dramas of the world. As we navigate the new year, we can use these times, even the tough times, as a light to guide us forward. In the crucible of 2020, where time seemed to both stand still and hurtle forward, I found simple joy and faith in the act of walking, observing, and breathing. Why should this year be any different?
