Hiroko & Kjersti in Dar-es-Salaam 1969
Oh yes. I hate goodbyes. That's the price I'm paying for having lived in other countries and made friends there. It meant parting from them eventually, and although we all knew that day would come, and it became an inevitable part of all our lives, it never stopped being sad, sad, sad.
Some goodbyes are more sorrowful than others. My best friend Hiroko went back to Japan a year before my own stay in Tanzania was over, and I honestly did not understand how I'd get through that year without her. We were in the same class at the International School, we spent time together after school, we went riding, we slept over at one another's houses. She taught me to play the guitar.
Her father was the Japanese ambassador, and the family lived in a fantastic house right on the beach. It was magical spending time there, running down to the Indian Ocean for a dip, eating the exotic food (though the Japanese cook claimed he moderated the food a bit for me), talking for hours on end about boys and parties. (We both did quite well in school, so we must have concentrated on homework sometimes, but I can't remember it ever being a topic between us).
This was Hiroko's and my song - "Black Is Black" with Los Bravos. We sat glued to the tape recorder to try and discern the words. Hiroko said. "I'm sure he's singing: 'If I had my way she'd be bare today'." Oooo - we were thrilled! And shocked! And it still sounds like he's singing BARE!
Another place to live, love and leave - Kuwait 1975
I kept in touch with Hiroko for years, but we lost contact before the Internet revolution came about. I've tried to find her on the social media, but I think her name may be quite common in Japan, and for all I know she might have married and changed her name. I still think of her and wonder about her life.
This is a girl who's said goodbye to me again and again over the past five-six years. She's fallen in love with Australia - and with travelling in general - and she left us in January to spend her fourth period Down Under. My middle daughter Julie. Oh how I miss her! Fortunately contact possibilities are different now compared to when I was young - and Skype has been my rescue and my consolation. When Julie was a child she didn't like travelling a whole lot - she felt much more secure with every day ordinary routines. When we went on holiday it took her several days to adjust, but she ended up not wanting to leave on the day of departure when new routines had begun to work for her! Now she's done travel and event education AND is working with this in Melbourne! Though I miss my baby so much it hurts, I realise that I can never stop her. I used to be exactly the same.
Three sisters photographed on Julie's 26th in November - Johanne, Sophie, Julie
Well, "to leave is also to arrive." Someone is waiting for you at the other end. My granddaughter Jelena is spending the night - I am so happy to see her again! Here she is tonight with her newly purchased magazine, becoming more and more the pre-teen. Her own words.
Distance is but a measurement - 10 minutes walk in between us or 10 hours flying, the first could be the longer distance.....
ReplyDeletePerhaps a new kind of mileage is required here, the mileage of the heart. Or, perhaps I am wrong. I love what Byron Katie once said when asked if she dreaded walking onto the stage, all those people in the audience - No, I am not fearful. I know they all love me, they just don't know it yet.
We are all one, we all love each other....we just don't always know it yet...... :-)