Strange.

My school is on a small street that looks a lot like an alley, but is, in fact, a street. Last night I walked back to work from dinner and I noticed the ringing of the bells, chiming off the time. I've heard them before in the States. In fact, I've heard the bells for almost as far back as I can remember. Every college in the United States rings them through the campus PA system every hour throughout the day. The first time that I recall hearing them is in my home town in Iowa, at the small private college where my father taught technical theater, but it occurs to me that I had probably heard them before that, even, at the University of Iowa.

I walked through the streets of Tokyo, in the rain, and I closed my eyes and listened to the pealing bells, ringing off the time, and the shrieks of tiny children at play, and, for just a few seconds, I could have been in any town where I've ever lived in my life. Then, I heard the squeals of the children punctuated by their still-forming Japanese and the spell was broken. I am not in Kansas, Toto.

Last night I had a dream that left me terribly sad and empty on waking, but I know from prior experience that these dreams are one of the final stages of grieving and loss that will eventually allow me to move on with my life, so I must embrace them and the sadness and then, hopefully very soon, I will return to a more healthy state of mind.