We all know that a winter scene, though it may be covered over one day, with even the trees dressed in shawls of snow, will be unrecognizable the following spring. Yet I never imagined such a thing could occur within our very selves.

Water is powerful. It can wash away earth, put out fire, and even destroy iron.

Perhaps it seems odd that a casual meeting on the street could have brought about such change. But sometimes life is like that isn't it

My tears simply broke through the fragile wallthat had held them, and with a terrible feeling of shame, I laid my head upon the table and let them drain out of me.

I fell into a sound sleep and dreamed that I was at a banquet back in Gion, talking with an elderly man who was explaining to me that his wife, whom he'd cared for deeply, wasn't really dead because the pleasure of their time together lived on inside him.

My mother once told me I was like water. Water can carve its way even through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path.

Here again, I saw life in all its noisy excitement passing me by.