Journal Entry#4 原民喜ー中央線
I got interested in Tamiki Hara, an author of “Summer Flower” and “The Land of Heart’s Desire,” and ran a little search on his life on the Internet. And, I found out that he faced many deaths of his family at his young age, and he loved his wife very much but lost her at a relatively young age because of her illness. And, as the introduction of “Toward the Unknowable Future” by Ōe tells us, he experienced the Hiroshima bombing when he returned to his hometown there to return his beloved wife’s ashes in the tomb of his family. By getting known about his life story and personality, I felt that the sentences of “The Land of Heart’s Desire” seeped into me more. Many deaths appear in “The Land of Heart’s Desire” – ants, her mother and sister, and lark, and his wife. It is overwhelming to extend my imagination to think about Hiroshima for him. But I won’t escape. I wrote the sentence to say for my wishes. He composed it in beautiful prose.
“I myself have long cherished a vision of an age when harmony would come to the earth, when deep in men’s hearts would sound the quiet murmur of a spring, and there would be nothing to snuff out individual existences any more….”
I was moved by Mitsuko’s strong heart. She experienced ill-treatment by others who “pitied” her, she believes others and helps people in trouble.
“I want to grow up fast and help people who’re having a hard time. I wish I could be thirty years old right now. I keep thinking about it.”
Reading aloud those sentences of future wishes is very important for me. In this world where nuclear bombs are still existed so many, it’s really scary and hopeless and dangerous. So, wishing words from Tamiki and Mitsuko who experienced Hiroshima are integral and savior for me. Reading them aloud helps and encourages me to live with hope and will and emotions. And I can live more strongly against things I am angry about.
Watching classmate’s video:
It was my delight to see other’s video. Not a single video is the same: what they see, how they capture, how they move, etc. And, all the videos I watched are stuck in my mind. They are short and simple, but surely moved my mind and made me think of their thinking and perception. I am also glad that these videos helped me get to know about my classmates from different lenses. I got to know more about their motions (as in class we focus on ourselves for the movement exercise) and their sense (what they perceive and what they think through this assignment) and I feel close to them. I felt this sense of knowing and learning when I read the journal collective archive. My aha moments for me were when other people think and feel differently when we read the same reading and do the same movement exercise. It keeps reminding me of my luck to get to my classmates’ feelings and memories through the same experience we do. It is a great learning opportunity.
Reflection on movement:
The main sense I encountered this week’s movement was “dreaminess.” It was a little scary experience to move my body in this sense of “dreaminess.” Eiko told us that it is “yawning of your body.” I had a hard time gripping myself in dreaminess but also tried to enjoy this new oddness that visited me during this movement. The dreamy movement was connected with last week's (3)’s movement for me. I think it was because we did it while lying down. This oddness in dreaminess was new to me and I moved slowly to taste the sense of this movement.
