Christmas Message

It’s been a wonderful year; if I were pressed to explain why, I don’t think that I could tell you. We continue to be very busy; Corey works long hours at Honeywell and plays in two bands. I continue to do the two weeks in Phoenix and two weeks in Vancouver, working for First Nation treaty rights. We both turned forty this year and found no mental or physical change in the landmark year that people often dread. In fact, we celebrated with a trip to L.A. for some jazz (for Corey) and a trip to Maui (for me). Both were a pleasure for us in different ways.

We visited Tokyo late this fall. It was a bit of an impromptu trip for the two of us. Corey has wanted to go there for some time, while I was less keen. I was there in 1987 and I had already checked it off my list of places to go; I thought that we could go somewhere new to the two of us. However, the time and affordable ticket presented themselves and we decided to go for a few days.

Although I lived in Japan for seven months, I only spent three really busy and long days wandering around the streets and parks of Tokyo. On this trip, I don’t think that I even went back to any of the places I went to last time. Although the sights may have been “new” to me, it was also as if all was familiar. The initial sensory perceptions were the seemingly memorable smells and sounds of the Japan of nearly twenty years ago; the roads are filled with car traffic, the sidewalks teeming with people, the smell of sewers mingles with the odor of food from street vendors or shops. Bits and pieces of the language came back in enough volume to be able to ask the vital questions. I even had some long buried body mechanics that surfaced- the ones that helped me bow and nod in ways learnt over time while staying there. It is peculiar that the body and mind would remember such things (especially for those of you familiar with my inability to remember what I had for lunch yesterday!).

In a way, the recent visit to Tokyo is parallel to what I find in my relationships with you: there are long gaps of time in between visits, there is a visceral recall of what defines you, and an amazing tendency to reconnect easily and happily. It was pleasing to discover this because I rarely stay in once place for very long and this means that chances are we do not see each other frequently. Yet since the recent experience points to the ease of being able to meet, even after a gap of nearly twenty years, it gives me great hope for future encounters between us regardless of how long it has been since we last saw each other.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a healthy, happy New Year, 2006.