The actor and the actress

I saw him today. I was in the car listening to old songs on the radio while I was waiting for the light to indicate a left turn. Suddenly there he was crossing the road in front of me. He seemed lost in thought. He didn't notice me and walked on by without a sideways glance. I could have called to him but chose not to interrupt his thoughts.
I had often thought about him and wondered about him.
His name is... He has no name and does not really need one in our moment of reminisce. He has many names in reality and carries them across stages and glimpses on TV screens. For a boy he is amazingly beautiful with the most bewitching eyes and such a disarming smile. A hint of make up and a little wardrobe time and he so very easily becomes 'she' with sensuality radiating from every flick of her lashes. The admiring glances from the girls turn a shade greener and the bewildered and questioning looks from boys become awe-struck and open displays of admiration, desire painted lustfully across their emotive exhibitions.
Finally I turned into the slow moving traffic impatiently following some road construction machine and watched him saunter flamboyantly past a few shoppers and noticed that he still 'turned heads', before he disappeared into Toritsudaigaku Station.
He was an enigma in many senses of the word. He was someone whom once met you never forgot. He was someone who took you are you are or however you portrayed yourself, in an open and trusting manner. He was someone who you felt at ease with, someone you could talk openly with and be amazed at how open and trusting he seemed to be as he disclosed elements of his life that always seemed both pertinent and sensational
and yet that last step was always missing. That step of closeness and of becoming friends. He always held that last barrier is if to hold us baying crowds at bay.
Today I saw him again for a moment and then he was gone and that is quite typical of all the moments that I have ever seen him. I seem to have collected fleeting moments and elusive shadows that fall momentarily across my path.

Sunday morning saw Hitomi and I cool off from the hot sun that will be a stranger all this week as the heavy rains that were predicted are now falling with a sense of urgency and raindrops as big as tennis balls smash themselves into a sea of frail umbrellas. We shared a couple of hours at Miura Kaigan which at first was in danger of being spoilt by some loud boys so we drove a kilometer further down the beach for uninterrupted moments together with tides inside rising as well.

By the time the early evening came we ate a meal together and she disappeared into the distance. Once more my baby leaves me to go do what she does best. I wonder does absence really make the heart grow fonder. Perhaps it is an empty phrase to make those lovers suddenly parted feel somehow strengthened in a spiritual way. I can tell you quite honestly and brutally without any niceties or decoration that suffering a lack of contact over time, our feelings for people can diminish or even go dormant."Time is the great healer' they say! Two weeks is nothing and is of hardly any consideration at all but ten weeks is too long. It seems we only just made it right after allowing dust to settle and now once more the sweet sorry of parting.

We fight for precious moments and quality time together, we re-prioritize what's important and reaffirm our love for each other and then in the quiet evening, the apartment seems greater, more spacious and has a distinct hollow ring to it.

I have begun to look at 'history' in a rather cynical fashion. What is history? Coldly speaking it is a record of events of mankind getting from there to here. I used to love history at school and still like such things as historical romances or alternative historical writings. Then I consider that my own personal history and the events in my life that have great or even just a little meaning, but still some value of meaning to me will just be lost.

Yes we all have read about great figures from history achieving great feats and propelling mankind forward on a progressive path but what about his or her tender and personal moments. Celebrities have biographies or better yet, autobiographies with moments of magic written into the lines of standard accounting. Perhaps we may consider that even before blogging we ordinary people had diaries and journals. I wonder what about that special moment that my great Grandfather had when he looked into my Great Grandmothers eyes and announced his love for her. At that moment the world outside of their immediate vicinity has little meaning for them because all that mattered was that two hearts became one. What of the moment I first held Hitomi in my arms and gave her my fearful truth and told her that I placed her above all others and she was my one love.

Is my Grandmothers moment gone amidst everyone else's special moments and lost in a cacophonic and meaningless historical period? What of my magic moments and what of yours?

In the future moments I have my first appointment on Friday where I will undergo my scans and learn the results of the last operation and that moment may also be a defining one and again it will most likely be lost in one hundred years from now. What is important then?

Is it the lessons of a collective past?

The ambitions, plans and desires we have for the future?

Or is it now, this moment that we live in and occupy?