Languages with a clear distinction between the tenses provoke its speakers into believing that these are separate domains. The past has gone, is finished. The future remains hidden, unknown. But, as I understand it, Japanese is not like that – time does not travel like an arrow through past, present and future. Everything is all at once.
There is a sense of impermanence about Japan. Earthquakes and tsunami destroy neighbourhoods. The architecture of the country reflects that, as does language: the Japanese live in a permanent now, although there is also an aesthetic of ageing, of wear, wabi-sabi.
Your task is to imagine a domestic scene where past, present and future coexist. You could walk into a room and find it as it was last week, last year, a hundred years ago. Maybe even find yourself in an open field. Or the house is in decay, derelict, your belongings covered in dust. You are dead, gone, still here, not yet born. Depict an immediate and everlasting moment, past and future superimposed.
This vision could awaken a sense of your own mortality. Or, as you reflect on this, something more mundane interrupts, a smell, sunlight on the wall, a text from a friend, a sudden pain in your chest.
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