in just this way.

"'But what are we doing? We're talking.'

'Still,' said Hatsue. 'you're not Japanese. And I'm alone with you.'

'It doesn't matter,' answered Ishmael.

They lay beside each other in the cedar tree talking until half an hour had gone by. Then, once again, they kissed. They felt comfortable kissing inside the tree, and they kissed for another half an hour. With the rain falling outside and the moss softly under him Ishmael shut his eyes and breathed the smell of her fully in through his nostrils. He told himself he had never felt so happy, and he felt a sort of ache that this was happening and would never again happen in just this way no matter how long he lived."

- Snow Falling on Cedars, David Gutterson.

Where does the line lie between telling yourself how you feel, and feeling? I wonder that from time to time, as I think thoughts I never thought I'd allow, say mellow truisms to suit the circumstance and company, let the world flow by, and me in it, a leaf in the stream to the sea. Alike, in almost every way, with the full forest of falling leaves losing themselves to the river tides. Is it humility to feel this way? Or resignation?

Snow Falling on Cedars is a story of so much love, aching love, from a very teenage affair between an American boy and Japanese-American girl. The seductively forbidden kind which flared bright and burned deep. As a man, he returns to his hometown to cover the trial of his lover's Japanese husband, accused of murder. The novel traces, ever so delicately, his regrets and untidy longings. He questions whether his feelings were ever real or true. Certainly, there's nothing left for either of them to pursue in this life. She's loyal to her husband, and more loyal to her sense of being Japanese - a point sharpened by years in an American internment camp during WWII.

I guess in this reading - it's really just a skim-read over a book which I read and left years ago, unimpressed at the time with its plain language style and subdued descriptions - those are themes that stood clear. What is real? What do you do because you feel you need to? And where does right and morality come into all of this?

If anyone was to ever ask me why I work so hard, so relentlessly, in so many directions, I would probably tell them, 'To buy freedom.' It's a capitalist world we live in, cold and contractual. I know the world doesn't have to be this way, but for now, it is, and we have to abide by its framework of laws. You need money to buy comfort - a home, clothes, food, travel, free time. You exchange your time and skills for money. And if you're shrewd, strategic, and very lucky, you might build a business, write a book, make a film, which allow you more choice - freer time, endeavours to enjoy - like work, but better. And at some point, you could choose to exit completely - do your Dharma Bums mountain watch. That's where I sense, under the day-to-day muddle of doing, I'll understand the truths that elude me. Painful, honest, obscure, elegant. And maybe I'll wring art from the experience. Or maybe become something else, someone else I never imagined.

Just as I have today.

You lose, you gain. Nothing stays the same. It is merely energy, transmuted. Still, it aches.