About the memories that fade away

The night my son was born, I was alone in my room in Ichinoya dormitory, Tsukuba, Japan, six and a half thousand kilometres away from my wife and our baby. The night was very long, I had nothing in particular to do, which made the night even longer. In the end, after hours of nervous waiting, I heard my son's voice over the phone.

The next four days I spent in Japan were a great mixture of emotions. I was very happy, perhaps the happiest man in the world, although I couldn't yet fully grasp that happiness. I was a little melancholic, the way people feel a few days before leaving a place they have become attached to. And I was very exhausted with all the packing-up and other leaving procedures, like cancelling mobile phone contract, closing bank accounts, paying the health insurance fees left over, etc. Amidst this maddening week or so, however, I have several great memories which I didn't put down on paper for some reason (although I have a thick thought notebook for such things).

I was riding my bicycle along the short but dark bicycle road to IIAS Tsukuba, a big mall in the outskirts of the town, to look for something I now don't remember. It must have been some clothes or toys for my son, who was born the day before. It is more likely that I wanted to kill some time and raise my spirits - walking around amidst large crowds and spending several hours between bookstore shelves usually inspires me.

It was getting dark as I rode to IIAS, and the little forests (or maybe I should describe them as groves) that line the bicycle track were breathing really cool wind - it was a bit too chilly. There was a new moon in the dark blue sky - a thin and shiny slice of cheese on a dark tablecloth. It was, perhaps, this combination of being on my own on with the crescent on a dark and cool bicycle track that put me in a melancholic mood, but I soon started thinking about my son. The baby who was born only several hours prior to that, whom I hadn't seen, who was so far away from me as it was impossible to imagine the real distance. I tried to communicate with my son, to speak to him. And it was then that I had the idea that I should write a diary or a collection of regular letters addressed to my son, in English, something he can read when he grows up and understand the feelings I was experiencing at that moment.

I became so excited with the idea that were I not riding a bicycle, I would start writing the first entry right away. So I made a mental note that I would write a note about that night for my son to read, but later, when it came to start writing, I didn't know how to begin and so left it at that. This is the first attempt to document that night, and if I see fit, I will write down other experiences from my life.