(no subject)
Ways to mystify office ladies:
On a dismal, rainy Valentine's day, find yourself the semi-shocked (though secretly knowing) recipient of a bouquet of fragrant, pink and lavender flowers delivered in a box direct from a swanky flower shop in Kyoto city.
In Japan, Valentine's day is a one-way street: women give, men recieve.
So I am the lone and satisfied American on a gray day in February, burying my nose in glistening petals whose shapes spell out small purple roses and love, with organic swoops and cursive curlicues.
Some days, in spite of their determination to be strange and anticlimactic, and to push down on you with a heavy windy sky, shine out from unexpected places. There was an unexpected delivery of free lunch boxes this afternoon, and plans are being made to visit Koyasan and Kyoto in the spring. I can feel the cherry blossoms coming, the ghosts of their transcience fluttering on my eyelids as I fall asleep in dismal Awaji island. Like spiderwebs. They will come, just as the new air will, the air that tastes like the world opening, and the dwindling span of time between us, between me and...you know...the guy who sent those flowers.
In the meantime, I plan to start a window garden. My mom tells me that lettuce and spinach will grow just right in an eastern exposure window, and that they are lovers of cool, late winter air. In a few days I will be up to my elbows in dirt and leaves again. I miss that, you know.