Oh, Darling!: 10/01/2010

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Another 2,103,795 minutes (approx)

Another year has passed in the story of Sarah-Rose and Craig: The Marriage.

A year of oh, of highs and lows. Lows which were so deep as to be unfathomable and highs which were really only high in comparison.
( did not have a good time in 209, can you tell? And still, and still, & forevermore*, the one shiny thing my magpie mind swooped upon was always the light in his eyes when he looked at me.

Our fourth year of marriage will be remembered by me as the year of facial hair (my Darling husband had a moustache on our anniversary and again in Japan) and the year when all I really needed (besides a long term visa for London) was to press my forehead in to the crook of his neck and to sigh, a lot.
Thankfully Craig doesn't find this too arduous a task and so, we muddled through.

I am looking forward to our fifth year of marriage, heading in to a decade of a relationship & completing half a decade of wedded ... joy**, the numbers simply baffle me. There are people I know and love who have never known me by my maiden name, being called MRS no longer terrifies me. All of this bedrock of a life lived in love is thrilling, exciting, a superpower. After the poor showing of 2009 (you get a FAIL grade 2009!) I know we will weather whatever 2010 throws at us with hands clasped tight and sole against calf***.

We still look at each other and sigh I just can't believe how in love with you I am**** and after 4,996,513 minutes (approx)*****, I think that's a good sign.

* hopefully! fingers crossed! knock wood!
** fun fact! I hate the word bliss.
*** this is the only way Craig and I can fall asleep touching. We cannot sleep entwined.
**** yes. Seriously. But never around anyone else though, for fear of making others physically ill.
***** 9 years, 5 months, 3 weeks, 6 days. Approximately.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Day Five: Hiroshima

A breakfast of Brioche (I hope) and Sports Water (we never did work out what that flavour was) before heading out to, of all things, the Mazda Museum.

Yes. Seriously.

It wasn't exactly interesting to me, but Craig enjoyed it. And I did like seeing the Assembly line. No photos of that though, in case I sold trade secrets or something.

1990s concept car, designed to look like a water bubble. I like it.

We caught the train back to Hiroshima and then a tram down to the A-Bomb Dome and Peace Park.

The Mobilised Students Memorial.

Children's Memorial - for Sadako Sasaki

I remember a little yellow book in my primary school library all about Sadako, and a song that we sung in choir.
Sadako was two when the bomb exploded in 1945 and was diagnosed with leukemia at 10 years old. On her sickbed she started folding paper cranes spurred on by the Japanese saying that one who folded 1,000 cranes was granted a wish, by August 1955 she had reached her goal but she continued to fold cranes until her death in October 1955.

SADAKO FROM HIROSHIMA
1. She saw the Thunderbolt in the sky
like a million suns, it prickled her eyes;
she saw the Thunderbolt in the sky -
two years old, it prickled her eyes.
But now she sits making paper cranes,
paper cranes, paper cranes.
Now she sits making paper cranes - Sadako from Hiroshima.

2. She was a runner, swift and strong,
she was tall and slim and her legs were long;
she was a runner, swift and strong -
ten years old and her legs were long.

3. She went to hospital tired and weak,
it was hard to laugh, it was hard to speak.
she went to hospital tired and weak,
eleven years old, it was hard to speak.
And now she sits ...

4. She lost the race that she wanted to win -
paper cranes couldn't cover her with their wings,
cranes couldn't cover her with their wings -
twelve years old and she wanted to win.
And now she lies with her ...

5. This is our cry, this is our prayer,
"May the crane of peace fly everywhere!"
This is our cry, this is our prayer,
"Crane of peace fly everywhere!

Peace flame

A lovely Japanese man carrying his own DSLR offered to take this photo, it worked much better than at Fushimi Inari where a well meaning American lady carrying a little point and shoot offered to take one similar.
She was perplexed by the viewfinder, ahh how cameras have changed.

There were small groups of children running around talking to tourists and practising their (ever so polite) English.
They asked what our names are, where we were from, our favourite part of Japan, and if we had a message for the Japanese people. They had us write our answers on 1 side of a piece of paper and circle our home city on the world map printed on the other.
In exchange they gave us each one of these pink pieces of paper.
Craig has a photo on his camera of me with the Japanese school children. We are the same height.