Ah, Impermanence

When I walk with my son, the women we pass glance, just for a moment, at him.

When I walk with my wife, some women look at her, but nobody looks at me. It is as if I did not exist.

I had business in Tokyo and took a train. The carriage was quiet, and I settled comfortably into a seat.

Not long after we pulled out, I noticed that the other passengers were looking at me. As for the beautiful young woman sitting opposite, she was actually smiling at me!

When I looked back at her, she lowered her eyes. Could it be that I was her type? I was letting my imagination run away with me when an announcement suddenly came over the speakers.

“Would gentlemen travelling in the women-only carriage please move to the next carriage.” Hanging from a strap in a packed carriage, I thought it over.

Why had that woman looked at me so kindly? The answer came from a little girl I had never met. It was in the lobby of a building somewhere. A girl of four or five took one look at me and suddenly cried out:

“Grandpa! Look, Miko’s got new shoes!” Her mother scolded her at once: “That’s rude! It’s ‘Mister’, not ‘Grandpa’!” But Miko had done nothing wrong at all. The one at fault was me, thrown into confusion by this sudden pronouncement of old age, and putting her mother to needless trouble on my account.

My mind cannot keep up with how fast I am ageing. Only six years until seventy? Surely they mean someone else! Outside, the rain of impermanence falls. And just as people hum a sad song when they are lonely, I find myself recalling an all-too-sad item I had once come across in the corner of a reprinted newspaper from 1933:

“Old woman, 51, throws herself from Sukiyabashi Bridge.”