He loved the open spaces, traveling the wide world, living on the edge of adventure in thirty countries and four continents. One day, he bravely traveled to Japan eager for the heights of Mount Fuji, the cool spaces of Hokkaido, and the white peaks of Nagano’s Alps.
Experience everything, he thought, day after day.
...
And so, the great traveler from Chicago arrived in Osaka from South Africa, via stopovers in Mauritius and Taiwan. On this trip, in the various airports, at every international stopover, he noted the fashions of the growing number of Asians he was encountering. A certain group of Asians, very often under the cover of BRAND names and fashion, appeared to be shy and quiet; he felt that this set them off from the other Asians he encountered who were more boisterous. Later, he came to understand that they were usually, not always, the Japanese people.
Once inside the Land of the Rising Sun, he studied the language, explored the countryside and drank deep in every city. He went to festivals, and every day learned more about these intriguing people. He wrote about the land of Geisha, Sakura, Samurai, and Ninja. And when he did, he thought:
This is love.
Years passed, and then came the day that he discovered Japanese Literature.
“Why, what a treasure,” he whispered, in the quiet of his typical Japanese six mat room, lost in Mishima’s world of THE TEMPLE OF THE GOLDEN PAVILION ; the sweet pungency of the tatami wafting up to his nose. Then he smiled to himself, remembering Shakespeare’s character Hamlet, who said:
“O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”
Yes, thought the great traveler, my bad dreams disappear every year with the arrival of the cherry blossoms, the blessed Sakura. I am truly the KING OF INFINITE SPACE. And Shakespeare must truly have been a Japanese man to have arrived at such a thought.
***
Shakespeare's Birthday coming up: April 23, 1564
