A person without content...

It was all there for you, a culture so deep in time, refined and terrible and, you tossed it. Did no one in your childhood ever say, "Now this is beauty and this isn't"?. There is something to see here. Look! Don't throw it away!"? Was there no time in your life for such frivolities?

When I first saw you in the market, I thought, 'Now, that is a person with content'. I judged you by your appearance. I was wrong. Your self-discipline is astounding but your life is without texture. You're a good mother and grandmother and know how to earn money but with all that, I'm yet to hear you reflect on anything...anything at all.

Was your husband tricked the same way, thinking there was something to you that wasn't there? When he died, you gave away his treasures -his books with their precious woodblock prints and, his haiku without regret. When your mother died, you gave away her kimonos and yukata without batting an eyelash or a tear. You needed to downsize, you said. You wanted your life to fit into a suitcase.

How can I interpret you, someone so unique? Is it that you harbor an anger so deep, that you push away all the magnificence (and horror) of your culture and all the meaning in those who care about you? Where does that anger come from? And, if it's not an early wound that makes you so, what are you?