broken steps

this is a pair of birkenstock i bought in fort worth more than three years ago.
this pair was falling apart, and not comfortable anymore, but i couldn't get rid of it: it's birkenstock!

even though the leather part was tearing apart, i was wearing these in my garden; it was such a great pair to wear in the garden.

my garden was not doing well this summer, and i don't even water them anymore. i gave it up when i was too busy taking care of myself. now i don't need to wear this falling-apart pair of birkenstock in my garden. so i decided to let these go. if something is not working out, i just have to learn that it's not working out. the life is all about acceptance.

next time when i buy birkenstock, i will buy a pair of shoes, not sandals, for walking around the streets.

a piece of life

i love haruki murakami's writing. some of his stories and writings make me feel that i still have a piece of "me," and i read those so many times.

this book, Underground, is the first murakami's writing that i read in english; a documentation of the sarin gas attack on the tokyo subway by aum shinrikyo in 1995.

i remember that i was waiting for my family at home alone, watching the tv news that day-- every family member was out, and i became scared after finding out one of the subway stations attacked with sarin gas was the one besides my fateher's company, also realizing my mother and sister must have taken subways since they were going for shopping in the city. i felt so by myself gazing at tv.
i remember the maddness that occupied all the tv channels that day; confusion, cry, people on the ground in the garden of hospitals, noises of the police cars, all that i saw on the tv.
luckily, my family members were all safe.

some years had passed, and murakami issued this book. somehow, i couldn't make myself read this murakami's writing in japanse. i tried a couple of times, but it was too "real" in my native languate. i couldn't read through. so when i happend to find this book in a bookstore in the u.s., i finally picked up and started to read. i loved what's in this book.

i didn't expect myself to get rid of this book from my bookshelf, but when erik, my friend from dallas, gave me a book he already read, this came to my mind as a good one for the exchange.

after all, it must be the best way to circulate the book i love; great books should reach out to more people somehow.