I left Japan this morning, and with that, left behind the endlessly reflective surfaces of a rainy Tokyo.
I write this from Delhi, which sort of feels like a good place to begin this new life. In about twelve hours, I leave for the Rajasthani desert for a road-trip with two wonderful friends, to make some images in places familiar and unfamiliar. (Sidenote: I have set up a new agency to do creative storytelling, and this is going to be one of its earliest endeavours. More on that some other time.) I’m eager for tomorrow to dawn, and I will go to sleep tonight wondering, yet again, what I’ve ever done to deserve the goodness this life keeps drowning me in.
Anyway, back to farewells and Japan.
This trip did finally end, as it had to, and the last couple of weeks were an absolute frenzy. This may have been apparent from my last poem, but I was in quite a manic headspace during the time. Endings matter to me, they are usually periods of immense intensity, visiting and revisiting memories while shaping and reshaping them. They bring out this burst of chaotic energy where every moment burns with coruscating brilliance and inspiration. It is restlessly, heartbreakingly beautiful and produces more words per minute than anything else I know.
Now that’s all over and I’m seated here, calmly typing this out to you. What, until this morning’s flight, felt like a train crash metaphor with everything flying all over the place, has transformed into this impeccable, orderly library of memories, everything settled in its rightful place. A place I can now leisurely stroll into, pick out anything and revisit as I wish. Once the ending eventually comes, it is always like this for me, done, like a flick of a switch. And I’m fully back in control.
A winter in Japan, neatly wrapped up, a box of endless pleasures and inspirations to dip into for the rest of life. What a treasure.
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One of the reasons I started this newsletter was to be more public with my words, and I think it’s seen a decent start. In the first few weeks, I had a tough time balancing the experiencing vs the expressing, but once December came around, I let instinct take over, and it figured itself out.
This newsletter has been an integral part of my trip, and perhaps this is the moment for me to express my gratitude to you for that. It was a refreshing channel for my words, the only real public medium aside from my personal journal, private letters, postcards and text conversations. So, thank you.
When I started it, I didn’t know what the fate of this newsletter would be at the end of my journey, but it’s pretty clear now. I will continue to write here and send periodical dispatches, because I’m not even close to being done with processing this trip yet. There are tens of thousands of images I have yet to even see from my trip, and hundreds of notes and undeveloped drafts to sift through once I get back to the relative calm of home, so I’m fairly sure there’s a lot of material to come out of this. And I know some of that will find its way here.
Moreover, I’m headed back to Japan for cherry blossom season, so I’ll probably be back to sending direct dispatches from there before I even finish plumbing the depths of this first trip. The wilder north of Japan awaits, and so do a few remote mountaintop shrines and pilgrimages, so there’s all that.
To sum it up, I guess there don’t seem to be any farewells in sight, not for this newsletter, and certainly not for Japan.
Here’s to loving things with all of who we are.
