LETTER TO SUE

Written on a ferry going from Kobe to Osaka

Good-bye Sue!

From now on our roads are apart. Your boat to China leaves tomorrow from Shimonoseki, I stay in Japan.

I am sad, though I understand that standing on a crossroad can never last long. We stood on ours from the beginning of September until today as we lived our separate lives in Japan. On rare occasions we created time spaces and meeting places just to Be; until the time to Be was done.

I cried. Michiko-san cried. You cried. Abe-san smiled. He was sad too. "We will meet again!" everybody said. Knowing that on the road everything happens only once and there is no way back, everyone hoped for it to be otherwise. Maybe if there were no good-byes we would not understand the preciousness of time, was your thought yesterday.

You are dear to me, Sue! You are a good friend! You are familiar and unknown to me, just like I am to you... You saw me through - you knew my moods and my emotions no matter how silent they were. You understood me no matter what language I was speaking.

Do you remember how the day before yesterday we drank tea at Michiko-san's place. The teacups and the smell reminded us of something. "Kohvikum!" we said in one voice and started laughing. Michiko-san came. "These are not ordinary cups," she said. "What did you feel when you were drinking tea?" I told her in Japanese about the memory of a cafeteria in Tallinn where we used to drink many cups of tea in. I looked at you. "Kohvikum," we said in one voice and started laughing again.

In the rain and in the sun, in joy and in sorrow, over 10 000 kilometers of land we walked together; we saw things together, wondered about them together, felt everything together. Starting from today we are on our own - you and me.

"All the lonely people, where do they all belong?", sang the Beatles in the morning. "All the lonely people, where do they all belong?", you sang in the car. "All the lonely people, where do they all belong?", I sang on my way to the Institute. These words still echo back in me.

Before Abe-san stopped the car at the service area, I handed a letter to you. Written on the envelope: "From Sue's travel companion, to Sue's travel companion". I hope you meet him or her very soon and that your road is going to be good. Even if your understanding of one another will be just half of what our understanding was, I am sure it is going to be a great companionship.

Have a beautiful life, meet a lot of kindness, have faith, be strong, feel joy...

My boat is now arriving to Osaka, I have to finish this letter. I hope that with the beautiful red "Hiroshima", sign which Abe-san painted yesterday, you have caught a safe ride by now.

Have a good journey! Good luck!

Carina

and...THANK YOU FOR EVERY MEMORY!