Time expands and contracts. When it expands, itโs like pitch: it folds people in its arms and holds them forever in its embrace. It doesnโt let us go so easily. Sometimes you go back again to the place youโve just come from, stop and close your eyes, and realize that not a second has passed, and time just leaves you there, stranded, in the darkness
Banana YoshimotoSo, have you been enjoying yourself these days, Kazami?' I'm having lots of fun.' It was true. That made the sense of regret even keener, that this time in my life would soon be a thing of the past. I felt as if I could understand a little of what my mother had been through, and the feelings she may have had at different times. I wasn't a child anymore, and this made me feel awfully lonesome, and utterly alone.
Banana YoshimotoThere are many days when all the awful things that happen make you sick at heart, when the path before you is so steep you canโt bear to look. Not even love can rescue a person from that. Still, enveloped in the twilight coming from the west, there she was, watering the plants with her slender, graceful hands, in the midst of a light so sweet it seemed to form a rainbow in the transparent water she poured.
Banana YoshimotoNo one can survive childhood without being wounded. Everyone remembers at least one time when their parents rejected them, pushed them away, even though they may have still been in the womb, blind, and unable to speak. That's why, as adults, we all look for someone to become our parents again, and for someone to look after us in times of need. And we search for a person to live with who can provide the companionship we so desperately want.
Banana YoshimotoFor ten years I had been protected, wrapped up in something like a blanket that had been stitched together from all kinds of different things. But people never notice that warmth until after they've emerged. You don't even notice that you've been inside until it's too late for you ever to go back-- that's how perfect the temperature of that blanket is.
Banana Yoshimoto