Mad World
This is what I imagined before coming to Japan: Sitting at my desk writing while in the background wind chimes chime and rain patters outside the open window. Replace the desk with a kotatsu, throw in a couple distant whimsical flutes and that is how you’ll find me at this very moment. Of course, in my head the view outside consisted of verdant rice paddies, not concrete buildings and parking structures, but oh well. The flutes make up for the scenery… or lack thereof. I made salmon pasta today, cleaned the apartment and watched Little Miss Sunshine. Not the most exciting day in this land of the rising sun, but right now I feel full and content. And glad I don’t live in California.
Maybe you’re wondering why I titled this post Mad World. It’s the title of a song by Tears for Fears, redone by Gary Jules for the movie Donnie Darko. The chorus starts out like this: “I find it kind of funny. I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had…” The song is excellent and I recommend listening to the whole thing. I bring this up because a couple nights ago I had a vivid dream I can’t get out of my head. I won’t go into too much detail, but here’s the gist of it.
I was stargazing with my dad, even though the sun was rising and we couldn’t actually see any stars. In the pink sky I watched a distant Earth appear to fall to the horizon, perform a hairpin u-turn and reverse direction. My dad said I’d just witnessed Earth’s vernal equinox. While somehow this didn’t seem right, I turned back to the sky for further gazing. That’s when I saw another object rushing toward the horizon. This time it was the moon. It was close. And when it soon filled the entire sky it didn’t perform a hairpin turn. There was a deafening sonic boom upon impact and then, in that mere fraction of a second before the shock wave, I realized what mortality really meant. Luckily the ensuing shock wave shocked me into wakeful consciousness, but that feeling, the realization that I will die, clung to me much longer than the dream itself.
That feeling has faded now. Now being July 23rd. This post was actually written about four months ago, but forgotten and left to rot in the nothingness of cyberspace. Seeing as how it’s currently the rainy season here in Akita, my initial paragraph holds true. I could ramble on about the dream, which I’m sure is what I had originally intended (though honestly I had forgotten all about that particular one until now), but instead I’ll leave you to ponder your own mortality at your leisure. Why does it take an unreality to make reality seem so much more significant? There’s a quote I like by Henry Havelock Ellis. “Dreams are real while they last. Can we say more of life?”
