Murakami and the summer that almost was

I’ve been having one of those summers where, when someone asks you how your summer is going, you sometimes answer “really well” and sometimes “it’s okay.”  And you’re being honest, both times.  It always depends on the day, right?  Context!

I know that the weather has something to do with it.  We’ve been having temperatures regularly in the 50s all summer long.  I find myself looking through my nabe cookbook already, searching for hotpots to warm my family up in the chilly evenings.

 

I’ve had successes too.  I finished a novel I’ve been working on and am about to start the revision process (wish me luck).  It’s been a while since I finished anything, so I’m feeling very celebratory about it.  Eve and I have done a considerable about of champagne toasting to it and other small miracles.

Also, I’ve started working again.  I prefer working to being in school, always have, but being back at work provides its own casualties from day-to-day.  I feel as though I’m settling in well to the job, but it’s not exactly the job I hoped it would be.  It’s all fine for now; I’m very much in need of a calm, indefinite situation, and that’s just what I’m getting.  So when the cold or whatever has me a little down, I’ve been turning to some reliable simple pleasures: Japanese cooking and Haruki Murakami.

 

Since the summer began, I’ve been reading almost nothing but YA fiction.  I knock one off in a day or two on my lunch breaks, they’re diverting and pleasant, but YA fiction has its own rhythm.  It’s been a while since I read anything literary and so, when I saw a coworker reading my favorite book of all time, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, I decided to revisit some Murakami for myself.

Reading Murakami is a unique pleasure for me.  There is something spine-tinglingly good about his writing, something so clear and perceptive in the way he writes that I read lines over and over again merely for the pleasure of it.  Picking up one of his books is delicious, like when you step into a luke-warm shower and the hot water suddenly comes back on, or your first sip of ice cold beer on a very hot day.  It’s the kind of pleasure I don’t really feel with any other author.  I’m guessing everyone has a few books like that, books you just want to hug when you’re done with them.

I’m reading Dance Dance Dance over again right now.  It still has its paper cover on from the Kinokuniya in Tokyo where my father bought it the first time we were all in Japan together.  Japanese people often like to keep what they are reading private, so booksellers provide these handy paper covers.  It’s sort of cozy, isn’t it?  And it keeps the cover beneath safe from scratches.  One of those very small things I hardly noticed when I was living there but noticed the absence of when I returned to the States.  Whenever I get into a slightly low mood, I start the grass-is-always-greener routine in my head about going back to Japan.  Whatever helps, right?

This is how I finish up my mornings before work now: fresh matcha and daifuku (well, I don’t get daifuku every day, but I do get matcha).

Also, chilled shabu-shabu udon for lunch, though it’s been so cold I had to heat it up!  What a summer!

Another sunnyandmild weekend is coming up.  I’m hoping for pastries from Honoré, writing and drinking coffee, and maybe (I’m really hoping) some peaches and tomatoes finally at the Farmers Market.

Wishing you all a warm and wonderful summer.  Do you have any comfort books you’re curling up with?

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