just listen...

This song, I think, is talking about an ended relationship, but somehow for me, this song is how I feel about this country, Japan. And knowing that I will be leaving my experience here in a few weeks. I mentioned it in my previous post, and I felt I needed to share it with you in a more real sense.
A friend of mine just sent me this passage that has given me some perspective. From the novel "Gilead"
"When I'm here in my study with the radio on and some old book in my hands and it's nighttime and the wind blows and the house creaks, i forget where i am and it's as though I'm back in hard times for a minute or two and there's a sweetness in the experience which I don't understand. But that only enhances the value of it. My point here is that you never do know the actual nature even of your own experience. Or perhaps it has no fixed and certain nature. I remember my father down on his heels in the rain, water dripping from his hat, feeding me biscuit from his scorched hand, with that old blackened wreck of a church behind him and steam rising where the rain fell on embers, the rain falling in gusts and the women singing "The Old Rugged Cross " while they saw to things, moving so gently as if they were dancing to the hymn, almost...It was so joyful and sad. I mention it again because it seems to me much of my life was comprehended in that moment. Grief itself has often returned to me that morning, when I took communion from my father's hand. I remember it as communion and I believe thats what it was. I cannot tell you what that day in the rain has meant to me. I can't tell myself what it has meant to me. But I know how many things it put altogether beyond question for me."
Now, I can go on with my day.