Somewhere Between a Palace and a Pavilion

Last day. En route to the occasional residence of the royal family, I marveled at Japanese diplomacy. Only non-Japanese tourists are allowed to see the Kyoto Imperial Palace on their date of arrival (with valid passport in hand of course), while natives have to make an in-person reservation weeks in advance, knowing that they will be bumped by foreigners at the last minute.

What was inside? Harmony. The upturned eaves were the shade of lapis lazuli, but the walls were bare white. The undersides of gates and columns were a flagrant orange, balanced by neutral grey. How different from the Chinese cacophony of colors, which is arresting to the eye, but too overwhelming to be comfortable. My mother nodded at me, and I knew she was going to say, "Elegant." Everything about Kyoto had been "elegant," and for my mother, that is the highest praise.

Next came the Ginkakuji, the Silver Pavilion. It might have been the absence of crowds or my more relaxed state of mind, but I found it to be the very essence of serenity. I recall the bamboo shadows, green curvatures of the garden more so than the temple itself, its silver exterior darkening through rain and oxidation. That's also where I met Eddie.

Eddie was a fellow American traveler and a lucky one at that. His work required extensive international trips, which he always managed to parlay into personal explorations of the world. He came to Kyoto while on business in Osaka.

We bonded immediately, over Uncle Sam and mutual cases of wanderlust. We experienced the Philosopher's walk together, a willow-lined path that wound through small village temples and ancestral shrines.

Our conversation lasted long into the night, over a savory meal of fish and sake, over a moonlit stroll through the eerily lit Yakasa Shrine with its wavering lanterns. We discussed metaphysics, disappointments, and an insatiable hunger for adventure that neither of us could quench. I began to see a reflection of myself in him, albeit an unlikely one since he was a well-built, Hispanic man of 6'2" and I was a diminutive Asian girl of 5'3".

I had not conversed that freely in a long time. Kindred spirits understand something so intrinsic within you that it surpasses the confines of your present condition. I thought about everything that had defined me before, everything that I had lost: career, relationship, and health. If I had defined myself by those things, am I now nothing?

Somewhere between the palaces, pavilions, and shrines, I met myself again. At some point into the journey in another country, a miraculous thing happens to us. We find ourselves detached from the social and cultural norms of the place we left, and yet not aware enough to assimilate into the place we are visiting. For the moment, we are liberated from our past traditions and not yet bound to expectations of a new tradition. In that brief space, we are free, more truly ourselves, rejuvenated by the internal fire that burns inside of us. And we remember the infinite possibilities of the self.

Right now, I had nothing but the infinite possibilities of the self.