I watched Perfect Days recently, the Wim Wenders film about a man who cleans public toilets in Tokyo. It's a brilliant film, quiet and moving. It made me miss Tokyo. The film is set in part in my old neighborhood, Sumida-ku, where the Sky Tree was built after I left. As I watched the film, I recognized the subway entrance at Asakusa near the Sensoji Temple--the confusing one where I always got turned around--and the Sakurabashi--the Cherry Blossom Bridge--the bridge over the river that I crossed at least twice a day every day that I lived in Tokyo.
Among my brother's things was an expired passport, issued the year I moved to Tokyo. From this, I know that he wanted to come visit me, but he never did. Of all the people I invited, including him, only Dave and April came. I never asked him--or anyone--why they didn't come. People were busy with their own lives. I know that. The only time I came home from Tokyo was when my younger brother died. I came home for his funeral and then went back to Tokyo to finish my contract. When that was done, I came home again. I fell into a deep depression. There were many times I thought I should have stayed in Japan. I regretted leaving. In the years since coming home though, my regret at leaving Tokyo has become easier to live with but it is never completely gone.
The grief was worse today than it was last week. The shock begins to subside and the awful reality begins to set in. I've been spending a lot of time on the couch, sleeping or more often not sleeping there. When I can sleep, all I want to do is sleep. When I can't sleep, all I want to do is sleep. It took me a long time to get moving today, to leave the safety of the couch. I cried a lot today. In the very late afternoon, I finally forced myself to get up and change out of my pajamas. Dave and I went for a drive. We stopped for a coffee and drove to the co-op. I stayed in the car. We came the long way home as the sun was setting. We saw groups of sandhill cranes heading to the river for the night. I love those birds and I will mourn when climate change drives them to extinction. I hope it's not within my lifetime.
The sky was dark gray and wintry. The mountains were blotted out by falling snow.
Neither of us felt like cooking so we ordered food from the okay Indian restaurant. We went out after dark to pick it up.
The Brain is having trouble with time and memory. What day is it. What time is it. What comes next. What came before. There is guilt. There is regret. There is too much time and there is no more time. There are failed attempts to blot it out. To cry it out. To talk it out. To make it less real. There is no sense to it. There is no making sense of it.
My brother's viewing and cremation had to be pushed back six days. A casket has to be custom built. I will order flowers to be draped over it. All this so that we have one final half an hour with him before he is cremated. After that it will be a week or two weeks before his ashes are returned. I hope this is what he wanted. Of all the things to get wrong-- Just add it to the list of things I've gotten wrong.
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