Diary of an Aging Writer

  There is something about a dilapidated old house that fascinates me. I hear lingering memories echoing inside the rooms. The newly married couple discussing drape colors to match the living room’s decor. The baby in a crib crying for a mother’s breast. The husband uncorking a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to serve to dinner guests. The mother working away on a report whose deadline fast approaches while her toddler daughter attempts to climb up a bookcase. The little five-year old boy staring in bewilderment when his mother introduces his ‘new daddy’. The sorrow at the dinner table when everyone remembers the good times with Grand Dad who died in his sleep. The weepiness of parents as they watch their children leave the home to start careers and marriages of their own. The joy expressed by parents when their daughter has given birth to their first grandchild. Finally, life comes to an end inside the house. The engines of heavy equipment swallow up the lingering remains of the echoes a

  I have a friend who is five years older than me. Well, OK. He’s 85 to be precise. An old 85 as far as I am concerned. He has a gloomy disposition. He opens his mouth and a complaint drops out. I say it’s a beautiful day, and he comes back with, “What’s beautiful about it? My prostate’s acting up again.”   Not many people in the neighborhood can tolerate him. He is not a man to keep his aches and pains to himself. I’ve known him for fifty years. When he complains, I tell him to shut up. “Nobody cares about your suffering.” One day, we were walking and a gloomy cloud hovered over his head.   “What’s bothering you?” I asked.   We sat down on the lawn in front of water fountains gushing upward to the squeals of little children drenched to the bone with the water splashing down over them.   “When I was young,” he said,   “I wanted to be old. And I got what I wished for.” “Yeah, but now you can wish all you want and you’ll never be young again.” “Maybe not,” he said and after a struggle he

  One day I was sitting in the park soaking in the warmth of the sun. Nearby I saw two elderly men looking into a tree stump hollowed out by time and nature. Both men were leaning on canes for support. The taller man scratched the top of his bald head and said, “Looks like two bodies dumped here after a gangland killing. Notice! One body is face down. The other guy must have been begging for his life. Notice how he was hiding his face with his hands? Definitely a gangland killing.” The other man shook his head. A breeze blew through the shoulder length of white hair covering his head. “No, no. Not a gangland killing. A birthday party. That’s not a body lying face down. It’s a little boy bending over a chocolate cake. He’s blowing out the candles. And the other guy? He's clapping his hands and singing Happy Birthday!” The two men argued back and forth until a nurse’s assistant escorted them back to the minibus.   Curious, I walked over to the tree stump and peered into it to see wha

  The Catholic Church in Sueyoshicho sits across the street from the Ooka River. The river snakes along some of the more colorful neighborhoods in Yokohama. In my younger, wilder days, I sometimes walked along a narrow road on the other side of the river sandwiched between the railway tracks and a line of bars. Each bar was large enough for one or two customers. A woman sat on a bed in the back waiting to provide customers with a happy ending . Artists have since converted the bars into studios and galleries turning the street into a trendy spot for the aficionados of art.   Now that I am 80, I come to the Catholic Church seeking something more profound than a happy ending.

 My dreams are vivid. Almost psychedelic. I wake up at nights with my heart pounding. Afraid to go back to sleep. Why can't I remember? Fear creeps down my back and claws at my sanity. Why can't I remember? Did I or did I not remember to lock the front door?