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A hug and a public kiss as dad says goodbye and I board my train. It has taken him many years to find his more tactile and affectionate self. I hugged him and kissed his cheek and told him I love him in his ear and as we parted I thought I saw a tear in his eye, but I may have been mistaken and it could have been in mine.
Another memory slips behind me. Another moment I would like to capture and store in a jar on the top shelf and only open when I wished to re-live the instance. Instant instances and not just the image on a photograph or the background noise and sound on a voice recorder, not just the smells of herrings and mall lavender incense but the being there. Not just memories, but moments frozen in time for me to re-live over and over again at my pleasure. Looking from the train window I watch the familiar disappear behind me as I speed into the unknown. I won't continue about living in the past or knowing the balance that makes some moments so special above the ordinary, we all have mementos from our life journeys.
Cue the strings for the rhapsody and the allegro indicative to the scene of my train speeding though the green and open countryside, the cadence finally giving over to the grave bass tones as we enter the city and home.

Once home I unpacked and sort laundry and have tea with Hiro. I sent a text to Hitomi and no reply yet. Yoshi and Fuyuko invited me for a Thai food evening to share news which was wonderful. It was funny how during silent moments it seemed we were all making eyes at each other and perhaps I'd bottle that in the jar of memories that might have been but it was just another enjoyable moment and I think I'm thankful for.
Yoshi and her estranged husband are going to try again and we all hope that it will go well and perhaps knowing the location of pitfalls can ensure a better path is taken?
I had often thought that I like being there and I like being here and the journeys in-between was the wasteful journey time that drags between the ports where we let our hair down. But even these moments are good to sleep and to read and to work and to pause and reflect and open a jar and see things perhaps you didn't notice before.

Perhaps it is a good thing that we don't know what tomorrow brings and I think all of you can think of at least one good reason why not. I look out over the headland of the present towards tomorrow and although no mists clear for me and I unable to see even the waves pounding the shore, I do hear a sound of a voice. It has strength but is tempered by calmness. In that mist I would hope for guide.
I have a trepidation within me and I sense that the new season brings a great change.
Fear of the unknown is felt by everyone and we should not allow it to debilitate us and of course it is equally wrong to rush blindly into the unknown. My white stick gently taps out the contours of tomorrows approach and inside me I feel swords and butterflies.
Do you know what life is?
It can be many things to many people but for me at this time it is the dawn of an adventure. I am aware of such uncertainties in the air as if they were the aromas from a scented candle. In the book of Jazz I turned the page for a sneaky look at what Jazzy did next but the pages are as yet unwritten. I am careful not to stain the pages with my Gratiam Prik Thai.
Too many things have changed and even the pages before need minor rewrites if I were to complete them with new insights from new perspectives. But it won't matter because this is my perspective and I ride another train, one that symbolizes that I'm still on a journey. Sadly the ticket stating my destination seems to be written in a language I don't understand. It is dark outside and as I look out, I see our reflected selves peer back at us with the same questioning eyes.
Something is coming.
And when I'm with you, the sun never looked so pretty going down.