One summer when I was in middle school, my parents, my sister, and I went to Scandinavia for a couple of weeks. My parents, still in their thirties, would go out alone at night. My sister, an avid TV watcher and my perpetual roommate, would be in our room upstairs eating snacks in front of the TV set. And I would read by the fire in the lounge.

Other people were relaxing in the lounge of this small hotel in the fjord town of Bergen, Norway. I don’t remember how this woman started talking to me. White-haired and tall, she and her husband were a quiet couple who kept to themselves.

Somehow we exchanged addresses and began to exchange letters. This was long before the Internet. I would write a letter on paper with a pen, write their street address on an envelope, and post the letter. Then I would wait for a while. (By the way, my parents had no part in this at all.)

Mirjam was a little older than my grandmother. She and her husband lost her two-year-old child in a German bombing during World War II, and the couple had lived together in a port town in southern Norway ever since.

Mirjam and I would write to each other whatever we wanted to write about, on our own schedule. We weren’t sure exactly which statement we were replying to. They weren’t e-mails. Letters weren’t kept in the writers’ possession.

After about a year and a half of doing this, Mirjam said she and her husband were coming to Japan on business, and that we should meet. I don’t remember how we did this, but there was no other way, so we must have decided on a date and time by letter. It was pouring the night they arrived at my parents’ house.

“Do old white people usually show up at your house?” To this day my sister says, “Ayuko. She’s so weird.”

My mother died in my first semester in college. Mirjam asked me what I was doing in the summer when school was over. I wrote to her I didn’t know. “Why don’t you come over?” So I went to Norway.

Mirjam had booked a room for me in a tiny hotel across from their tiny beautiful apartment. I commuted to Mirjam’s place every morning. We would hang out, cook together, watch Dallas, talk about Reaganomics, check out the town’s new Benetton store, and let her husband take us out for a boat ride.

Two 78-year-olds and a 19-year-old are on a road trip around the Swedish border.
Ayuko  “Um, can I have a bathroom break, please?”
Mirjam “What? Again?”
Ayuko  “I need to go often.”

Mirjam  “You just went. A simple procedure can correct that. It will make you feel better. My friend had it done and she is quite happy. Think about it, won’t you?”

This is what I thought. First of all, you two can hold forever. You never have to go to the bathroom. You are so healthy and strong. I have always had to go to the toilet all the time! The trip was quiet and delightful. I loved their company.

When I became an adult, I didn’t write to Mirjam as often, and gradually letters stopped coming. Then one day I couldn’t reach them by phone. Naturally. No matter how long you can hold, no matter how strong you are, when you get old, everyone weakens someday and dies someday.

I regretted not writing her more. I was heartbroken about not taking the time. I felt sad about it for a long, long time. Recently I started feeling all the sadness was for nothing, and that it was okay. Here’s why.

I am getting much closer to 78 than to 19. It makes me smile to think about my young friends being safe and doing what they want, whether I hear from them or not. Maybe this is how Mirjam felt about me. No, I’m SURE of it. We are kindred spirits.

today’s special

something new: Slow Rush Coffee 
something read: Bessel van der Kolk “The Body Keeps the Score”, Elaine Castillo “How To Read Now” a little bit of each