Today I took a photograph of my Kindle next to a cup of
coffee at the Graph Café in Thailand. Immediately after doing so I was reminded
of a similar photograph I took in Japan. I was at the Starbucks in Matsue city,
only weeks after I moved to Japan. Toni Morrison was my refuge from culture
shock and from homesickness. I could lose myself in her words enough to forget
that I was supposed to be speaking Japanese. I didn’t live in Matsue, though I
would have preferred that. I was only there for a two-week training before my real
job was to begin. Each day after training I would walk 2km to the station,
which housed the only Starbucks in the City, and I would sip green tea brownie
Frappuccino with Toni Morrison and laugh and cry with her characters in
Beloved.
This past year I found myself again drawn to her words in
Song of Solomon, only this time they found me in Thailand. I wasn’t living in
Chiang Mai then either, merely stopping over for one month, on what might also
be considered a six-month training before my real job was to begin. Wherever I
go my habits follow.
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