journal features

Toronto – Jamaica – Japan

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2011.05.16

Last night we had a chat with Mari's family on "MS Skype". We were dismayed to hear that some photos we sent had never arrived.

They turned up today, even though it took some six weeks. It took so long because Canada Post sent our photos to Jamaica, not Japan. Mari's mum looked at the Jamaican post-marks and scolded the globe-trotting envelope for having gone somewhere she still hasn't been. Too true.

Curiously, this isn't the first time that something of ours went so badly astray. My bank in Canada once sent something to my home in Japan via Panama of all places. Another time, a Thai hotel badly mis-spelled just about every part of my name and address and Japan Post still managed to get the article to us. I guess when there are only two gaijin in the neighbourhood and both fellows live in the same building it helps....

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner