Sometimes when I land somewhere, I catch myself looking around and thinking about what it would be like to have someone waiting for me. The VMS driver is waiting for me when I land in Bucharest, from some hotel in another country, where I’ve also booked a transfer. I often look around to see the impatience of those waiting for someone and the joy of those who come. I am always touched by the hugs and the smiles on their faces.
Once, in Paris, at the terminal where I arrived, there were some with lights, cameras, and microphones. A reporter came up to me and asked me where I was from. I replied with a question: ‘Where would you like me to come from?’ ‘Japan,’ he said. I was coming from, oh my, only Bucharest!
But, often, I don’t look around. I know I have to look for a place where I can get a taxi and I go purposefully, like a train on the tracks, without being distracted by what’s around. I’m avoiding, maybe, something. Or maybe I’m putting a lock on the hope that I might get surprised. A hope with a Bovarian tinge, I know, that does neither soul, nor mind, nor complexion good.
I give it permission from time to time to come out from under the padlock to breathe some fresh air, to feed on other ideas, other goals, other horizons. Not for nothing but without a thread of hope, reality can become overwhelming, it can bring clouds over the being, and the atmosphere can become unbearable, in the long run.
Now I hope for a new journey.