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Never saw the morning till I stayed up all night
Never saw the sunshine till you turned out the light
Never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long
Never saw the melody until I needed the song...
Japanese houses are wretchedly cold in winter, except where they're snug and warm. Unlike Canadian homes, in which you need to remove six layers of outdoor clothing (fur to t-shirt in two minutes) to avoid heat exhaustion, or our house in England, which generously dispenses its pale heat across the neighbourhood through leaking walls and uninsulated roof spaces, retaining for itself only a breath of warm air and exhorbitant energy bills, Japanese houses are warm in just the places where people are...and close to freezing everywhere else. After just a few hours of cold weather, one appreciates the inspired genius of the heated toilet seat that is virtually standard bathroom equipment here. The very contrast is exhilarating, though: when, a few hours ago, I slunk off the heated carpet in the living room to go upstairs and check on the temperature in the children's bedroom, the fluctuation—from 24 (living room) to 6 (hall, stairs) to 26 (bedroom) gave me a better appreciation of both temperatures than if I had stayed at the constant 19 degrees that our Sheffield home boiler aims for, on its good days.
Entering the children's room, and perhaps other things today, put me in mind of the introductory music, San Diego Serenade by Tom Waits, from the album The Heart of Saturday Night. (Which is his best, unless that would be Closing Time... or Blue Valentine..or...or... at all events, one of the best) The song is about the appreciation of contrasts (...never saw the East Coast till I moved out to the West) but, more than this of course, it is about loss and regret, about how we often know and express love only after it's too late:
I never saw the white line till I was leavin' you behind
I never knew I needed you until I was caught up in a bind
And I never spoke I love you till I cursed you in vain
I never felt my heart strings until I nearly went insane
The corollary is also true: contrasts appear less meaningful when they are surrounded by similarities. So it was earlier today (27th December), when we took Justin to a support group for DS families at the prefectural hospital. I had been dreading this encounter—I'm still highly ambivalent about joining any such club—but in the event the surprising, and encouraging, outcome was the appreciation of how normal the condition is: after only a few minutes, I stopped noticing the traits that distinguish DS children from others, and started to see whether the child I was looking at bore closer resemblance to his or her mother or father. As you do, in normal situations...
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| Winter skies: Christmas morning on Rokko-san |
Never saw the sunshine till you turned out the light
Never saw my hometown until I stayed away too long
Never saw the melody until I needed the song...
Japanese houses are wretchedly cold in winter, except where they're snug and warm. Unlike Canadian homes, in which you need to remove six layers of outdoor clothing (fur to t-shirt in two minutes) to avoid heat exhaustion, or our house in England, which generously dispenses its pale heat across the neighbourhood through leaking walls and uninsulated roof spaces, retaining for itself only a breath of warm air and exhorbitant energy bills, Japanese houses are warm in just the places where people are...and close to freezing everywhere else. After just a few hours of cold weather, one appreciates the inspired genius of the heated toilet seat that is virtually standard bathroom equipment here. The very contrast is exhilarating, though: when, a few hours ago, I slunk off the heated carpet in the living room to go upstairs and check on the temperature in the children's bedroom, the fluctuation—from 24 (living room) to 6 (hall, stairs) to 26 (bedroom) gave me a better appreciation of both temperatures than if I had stayed at the constant 19 degrees that our Sheffield home boiler aims for, on its good days.
Entering the children's room, and perhaps other things today, put me in mind of the introductory music, San Diego Serenade by Tom Waits, from the album The Heart of Saturday Night. (Which is his best, unless that would be Closing Time... or Blue Valentine..or...or... at all events, one of the best) The song is about the appreciation of contrasts (...never saw the East Coast till I moved out to the West) but, more than this of course, it is about loss and regret, about how we often know and express love only after it's too late:
I never saw the white line till I was leavin' you behind
I never knew I needed you until I was caught up in a bind
And I never spoke I love you till I cursed you in vain
I never felt my heart strings until I nearly went insane
The corollary is also true: contrasts appear less meaningful when they are surrounded by similarities. So it was earlier today (27th December), when we took Justin to a support group for DS families at the prefectural hospital. I had been dreading this encounter—I'm still highly ambivalent about joining any such club—but in the event the surprising, and encouraging, outcome was the appreciation of how normal the condition is: after only a few minutes, I stopped noticing the traits that distinguish DS children from others, and started to see whether the child I was looking at bore closer resemblance to his or her mother or father. As you do, in normal situations...
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