Dear whomever,
I’ve been afraid of planes ever since I knew what planes were, but seeing the clouds from above never loses its magnificence. Every time I look down to the Earth from a plane window, I pull out my phone and try to capture the view. It always feels like a miracle. The picture never lives up.
So I try to memorize it: I try to store it in my memory for future use. This is a futile, pathetic human act, of course. Memories don't work like that. Brains don't work like that. And I have aphantasia. So, I just have these words. I try the photos often, but they’re never as beautiful as I want to be.
I listened to Mad Sounds by Arctic Monkeys as we descended into Tokyo. We’d flown through several storms: so the fog was thick, and came apart like stage curtains. I was wide eyed, exhausted, half-drugged, shocked, awed, thankful. I’d seen so much of the world in my life, I realized in that moment; I am consistently gifted with experiences beyond my imagination, blessed with a passport that makes it so easy to move around.
I said thank you a lot on the plane ride - to God or the universe or whoever or whatever wanted to listen. I said I am grateful, I am grateful, I am grateful, I swear, I am so grateful. Moments like those are rare: I basked in it.
I’m trying to milk it - that feeling of deep appreciation and gratitude. It’s like drugs, luck. Sometimes it comes and only when you greet it does it keep coming and coming.
Walkable cities always bring me closer to my humanity. I find they are the only place I truly feel alive and fully real. You experience it/them/us better, when outside of the bubble that is your car. You experience being alive as it truly is: breathless, messy, trying, late, slow, quick. At the cusp of the messiness of the subway, so many people crossing and moving and walking and running, my brother asks, “are you ready to swim?” in preparation for the next steps. A nod. Then, we become, as we step into the crowd, one with everyone else, like a school of fish.
On this trip, I accepted that no camera would do what I was feeling or seeing justice. I watched, instead, everything, with my eyes, and practiced not reaching for a camera. The lovers, hand in hand here, leaning into each other there. On the train, he gave her the one free seat available then stood above her, and she pressed a kissed onto his stomach. Something about it made me soft.
I do love trains, but subways are even more special. The flower shops in them, most of all, because what does it mean to get on a train if not that you’re going to something you love? There are always boys in the shops, awkwardly pointing to different flowers, trying to come up with something their lover would like.
If we rewind, to the beginning, love was there, too. Just before my flight, in terminal B6 of Istanbul’s airport, a couple did not release their intertwined hands even when handing over their passports at the counter, and continued that way into the plane. Eleven hours later, as I grabbed my overhead luggage and walked towards the exit, I found them in front of me, their hands were still linked, their soft smiles still ever so evident, if sleepy.
Back in the epicenter of Tokyo, it is raining, wet and dreary, and lovers and friends are huddled under clear umbrellas. If not sharing, one is holding it up for the other. If not, the other is simply smiling down at their companion. Sometimes, as we do the Shibuya Scramble crosswalk, someone will be crying, the other holding onto them, guiding them forward. Someone will be talking enthusiastically. Someone will be laughing. It’s all so much and it is everything. Humanity. In all its forms and emotions. So often in twos. We are social creatures - we are.
Japan is littered with handheld fans, and often - very often - a friend is holding it to another, instead of themselves. Pointed at their friend, lover, mother, sister. The selflessness in that act. The deep love and care. In that small, minuscule act.
Beside me, on a bullet train, a father has his daughter on his lap. She is a feisty thing, loud and energetic, talkative, full of laughter. She fits so perfectly on his lap, like a puzzle piece, holding a bear, and he holds the other, and they speak to each other in different voices. The mom, who is sat on the adjacent side, laughs with them. I don’t understand a word of their Japanese. But there is clear, unanimous love that you can hear no matter the language, no matter the barrier.
I could write and write about all the places I’ve visited and how only today, only this week, I realized the severity of what each place taught me. Czech Republic. Germany. America. Japan. What comes next? I don’t know. I feel changed, I feel changed. I feel grateful. I feel small, and feeling small is a good feeling - it means there’s so much to witness. It means it’s all bigger than me, and I can just be.
“Each time I’d flow through the world,
I’d see
That the world
It flows through me”
- Through Me, Hozier
With love from Tokyo With love always from wherever,
Amal
Love actually is everywhere 😩🤍