Winter Homesickness with Kaneko-san

Sometimes there are things inside of us of which we are unaware.  It's winter and I retreat from one corner of my apartment to another, avoiding the cold; half of my living space sits unused behind closed doors, holding empty boxes.  I sleep in my heated practice room, moving the mattress as needed.   It's a funny thing, the transition to winter and where it takes us.

Last night I had a surprisingly emotional dream about missing my family.  It stuck with me this morning, a harbinger of homesickness and the conscious feeling of physical isolation.  The winter retreat.  I wonder how much is my own state and how much comes the world around me.  Sickness, loneliness, days spent indoors.  It seems the world is regrouping, alone and collectively.

This morning after I got up I started to write my essay for dear Kaneko-san.  I started to write about writing letters to friends, how I was far away and liked letters.  I kept myself from staying on this topic for fear that I would accidentally inflect an emotional situation more dower than I meant and confer upon him some awkward responsibility.  I just wrote about upcoming plans to go to Hokkaido, strategically informing him that I would miss next week's lesson but would still study Japanese.

But it's so hard to hide the truth, even as gentle as this winter missing is these days;  and so as we worked on ways to say that we want something (a new car, a cell phone, a friend), I replaced my initial response of "lunch," (apparently not acceptable with this particular vocabulary and grammar) with "a ticket to America."  I didn't mean to say it, but of course it was the first thing that came to mind (well, after "lunch," that is).  And dear, dear Kaneko-san looked at me.  "Oh, homesick?"  And I said yes.  And then he started to ask me about home, about my parents, what jobs they had.

It's such a gift to find ourselves in another person's kindness.  That we hide these things, perhaps unknown even to ourselves, and yet there are those who are waiting to catch them with no great drama, but with simple graceful respect.  A minute of asking, of unadorned caring, and nothing more.