SOME THOUGHTS ON TIME AND THE HARVEST MOON

My husband is currently in California and I am in Japan, 8,000 miles distant; but in this age of modern wonders, we can send messages at an incredible speed, almost the speed of light; thus, the distance between us disappears. Each day we talk and I feel that my husband is with me here in Japan as we talk through instant internet messaging and voice/video conversations, and the time difference becomes irrelevant.

One night, in autumn as I recall, at the time of the harvest moon, we were talking. The time was about 10 p.m. in Japan and in California, it was morning. I left my computer for a few minutes to get coffee and while in the kitchen, peered out the window. The out of doors were dark and cold except for a beautiful moon that shined through the window. I went back to my computer and said to my husband, “Hei, look outside! Look at the beautiful full moon! My husband, unfortunately, could not see the moon however, because the sun was coming up and the moon there had long ago set.

My husband said, “Hei, darling-chan, it’s impossible right now to see the moon because it is morning here; and in Japan, your today is my tomorrow. Maybe the moon you saw in Japan today will appear here tomorrow!”

“Oh, hai! I forgot about the time difference; but you know, this is a bit fun! You live in my past and I live in your future. We are living in a science fiction world, a ‘time-warp!’”

Every time I look at the harvest moon, as I did again a few nights ago, I cannot help but to think that we are time travellers. In a sense, my husband and I live in the past and in the future; still, I feel that we are always together.

This year, 2011, the harvest moon came to Japan on 12 September. We Japanese enjoy looking up at the moon, a custom called otsukimi, and in autumn the harvest moon marks the rapid changing of seasons. Where my husband is, the migrant birds that live there from late spring to early autumn are now busily moving to other places, while others, who live in the far north, are coming to his region. A few days ago he said that the first troop of wild geese arrived in his town during a beautiful moonlit night. I wonder if they are perhaps Japanese geese; that they left Japan in the early morning and arrived in the evening to deliver a message to my husband in the full light of the moon:

/秋の夜に雁かも鳴きて渡るなりわが思ふ人の事づてやせし　　　紀貫之

Aki no yo ni

Kari kamo nakite

watarunari

waga omou hito no

Kotozute ya seshi

autumn night,

geese fly across the sky

please hand my message

to my sweetheart.

Kino Tsurayuki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ki_no_Tsurayuki

by Aoi Tokugawa. Translated by Hayato Tokugawa