I studied Japanese language and culture in college and graduate school, and afterward went to work in Tokyo, where I met a young man whose father was a famous businessman and whose mother was a geisha. He and I never discussed his parentage, which was an open secret, but it fascinated me.

A geisha has studied a man's moods and his seasons. She fusses and he blooms.

We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.

I will think of you every time I need to be reminded that there is beauty and goodness in the world.

I worried she might spend an afternoon chatting with me about the sights and then wish me best of luck.

I don't like things held up before me that I cannot have.

Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable?