“Not a word did he say about the sadness of his face and his life. And I did not ask why he is sad and why he is laughing all the time. We did not speak a word of it, we did not like to be foolish and ask and answer the problem of the earth, and we did not have to. Every little observation, every little banal talk or laughing matter springs from the sadness of the earth that is reality; every meeting between individuals, every meeting of a society, every meeting of a gathering, of gaiety or sorrow, springs from sadness that is the bed of earth and truth.
“And so when he said he was a laundry truck driver and had come to the park for breath of air which is no different from the wind that hits him while driving, all that matters is that he is a laundry truck driver, a man living in the city, coming to the park for a pause, not for great thoughts or to escape the living of life, but to pause and laugh, unbitterly and unsentimentally, not wishing for dreams, not expecting a miracle, not even accepting the turn of the next hour or next second.
“And this is the greatest thing happening today: that of a laundry truck driver or an equivalent to such who is living and coming in and out of parks, the homes, the alleys, the dives, the offices, the rendezvous, the vices, the churches, the operas, the movies; all seeking unconsciously, unawaredly, the hold of this sadness, the loneliness, the barrenness, which is not elusive but hovering and pervading and seeping into the flesh and vegetation alike, churning out potentially the greatness, the weakness, and the heroism, the cowardice; and therefore, leaving unfinished all the cause of sadness, unhappiness, and sorrows of the earth behind in the laughter and the mute silence of time.” — Yokohama, California Toshio Mori
Tuesdays I’ve been meeting the problem of the earth; the sadness of the earth. It doesn’t matter where or when it starts but it always comes and lays down in me and I in it.
What is the sadness, the problem. I think maybe it’s the temporariness. I think also maybe it’s that it’s never enough. That I want it all and never want to lose what I have, and what I’ve lost I want back–all of it. How normal that feels and it makes me wonder if the earth feels the same way for all it loses and wants.
And even the earth, as still and unchanging as it seems day-to-day loses what it has, what is is, and in fact one day far off in that empty silence of big time it will be gone. How strange to think of this place being gone. This place that is everything will be gone and there will be no trace. What will be here instead?
It seems maybe the best answer on days where this is laying into you is to lay down in it in a park, or on a walk at your work’s cargo bay, looking at the trees and watching them wave all on their own in the cool wind.
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