Just finished reading Memoirs Of A Geisha. Very interesting read and beautifully written - or should I say, spoken since it was the spoken history of a geisha named Sayuri?

The main character has had many ups and downs, perhaps more than others, perhaps less than most, and she tells it all in this book. But then, it's not really the hardships that matter, is it? As cliche or as preachy as I might sound, it matters most how these things affect us rather than the actual things that happened in our life.

Anyway, there're these parts, at the end, that strike a chord within me.

1. One of the characters says: "Sometimes, I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see."

I begin to wonder again about reality and stuff. Isn't the things we remember really more real than the actual things we see because the things we remember are the things that ended up shaping us. Like if you were asked which was more real to you, would you answer that it was a knife or a slash wound on your body caused by a knife? A knife is just that, something outside of you. For a blind person, it's simply an object that has a handle that's probably made of smooth wood, a smooth thin metal that is quite sharp. Yet the wound mattered more to you than the most expensive knife ever could. That's just one take on it, of course, but that's how the quote feels to me right now. Like my memory of Ina laughing and hugging the pillow that James gave on her (and our, for that year) last day in school. Like my memory of me, Shirley, Liza, and Candy crying all over the place outside the airport. Are they not more real to me than the thousands of miles separating me from my two best friends? Are those not more important than any distance, any rift that could separate us?

2. "I fell into a sound sleep and dreamed that I was at a banquet back in Gion, talking with an elderly man who was explaining to me that his wife, whom he'd cared for deeply, wasn't really dead because the pleasure of their time together lived inside him. While he spoke these words, I drank from a bowl of the most extraordinary soup I'd ever tasted; every briny sip was a kind of ecstacy. I began to fell that all the people I'd ever known who had died or left me had not in fact gone away, but continued to live on inside of me just as this man's wife lived on inside of him."

When people leave, not just because of death but maybe because of distance or a fight that tore you apart, are they still not a part of you? And if they had an important role in your life, even for just a little while, are they still not somehow significant to who you are? Karen and I don't talk anymore and I have no idea what's happening to her or how she's doing. I may miss her but that doesn't mean that I have completely lost her in my life. When I remember the things that we've been through, the jokes and gags, the ups and downs; she helped shape me to be who I am. Regardless of whether I need her now or now, I needed her before - to make me who I am meant to be. From the very moment she shoved her desk at the back of my chair (she really didn't want me to sit in front of her) and from all the taray looks she gave me for having been assigned to sit beside her crush throughout the sixth to first year college, until the moment that I stood in our apartment, asked her a question and received silence... it's all inside my little cup of life that I continue drinking. Sometimes it turns sour... but mostly, it's a mixture of tastes that burst into my mouth, each vying to be tasted and somehow ending up as one cohesive, and very delicious, taste. And that's my life and the people who have enriched me.

3. "I cannot tell you what it is that guides us in this life; ... just as a stone must fall toward the earth... it was all like a stream that falls over rocky cliffs before it can reach the ocean."

Things might not make sense some times... or, if you're like me, most of the time. But at the end, it all turns out okay. In the first season of Friends, there was an episode where Rachel's (Jennifer Aniston) friends visited her in Central Perk and they all started talking about what they were doing. Her friends were getting promoted, pregnant, and married. In other words, her friends were moving in their life, doing the things that they always thought they'd do... and here was Rachel, stuck waitressing in a coffee shop, not really knowing what to do with her life. She asked Monica (Courtney Cox soon-to-be-Arquette) and Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) for advice and they said that nobody really knows what they're doing in life. They just do the best they can and hope that one day, it'll all be clear... that they'll have a plan and it'll all work out. And one thing leads to another until they're all drunk and Monica asks Phoebe if she's got a plan and Phoebe replies, "I don't even have a pl". Isn't that how we all live our lives? There are a very, very few who go through life knowing exactly what they want and how to do it. And not only do they know these things, but they actually do it. Then there are people like me, the more 'normal' ones... wherein life deals me good and bad things, and I just do my best to deal with them. I have a general plan I want to follow, but don't always get to. And yet somehow, there's hope that one day, everything will just make sense. And that some day, the "an" will be added to my "pl". In the end of that episode, Rachel realized that although her life might suck compared to others, it was actually quite rich because she had her friends, who made everything worth while. In the rat race that symbolizes a lot of people's lives, how many people can honestly say that even though their life sucks, they at least have people they love around them. Which means that their life isn't so bad. Maybe money is always tight, maybe brains aren't your strong point, maybe you're this obsessive freak, maybe you've got intimacy issues that never really get resolved, maybe you're this boring dork, maybe you're this dumb actor (hm... I just characterized everyone on Friends); but in the end, does all that really matter? Isn't the way you love and live more important than the way you end up living your life?

4. "But now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too son they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper."

Yes. Even though there are times when things are so chaotic that you just want to stop, take a breather, and maybe sleep for the next 65 years - you know they'll end up okay. You know that one day, you will get that break and be able to breathe as freely as you want. Maybe there are so many things I want to do in my life and I have this fear that I might not be able to do it all and one day, I might regret that. But is it really so bad? Will it really happen? Life is like a cross-stitch pattern that you try to complete. You can make mistakes, little mistakes that are easily fixed by cutting the thread and taking it out, or by backtracking. You can look for the missing thread that you need but end up not finding it, so you have to get the same color, but different type. You may have more or less than the actual needed cross stitch in a pattern. You may make a gazillion, million mistakes, big or small,... but in the end, the pattern you made is uniquely yours. And it always turns out okay.

There are actually a lot more insights in the book, but since these were found on the last few pages, it was the easiest to find.

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I've always been interested in geisha's - how they live their lives, how they dress, how they act. There seems to be a lot of dignity in it, even though some might crudely (although rather quite accurately) define them as glorified prostitutes. Still, there's dignity and honor in it. They're not just the simple prostitutes who lie for anybody - no, they go to the highest bidder. They may have no choice who their danna (layman's: sugar daddy) is, but at least they expect to be treated like a princess and they are. Although I have to admit, that their sex isn't really all that great. It seems to consist a lot of simply lying down and letting the man do their thing. Her mizuage (I prefer that term to "being de-virginized") was quite painful and bloody. Could the guy not at least try to make it easier and more enjoyable for her? Seems they haven't heard of the word "foreplay". Hm. But then maybe that's just how the men treat their mistresses? I wouldn't know. But one day, I'd love to dress up like a geisha, or even pretend to live like one for even just a day, at least. Of course, minus the sex bit. Duh.