Where rivers meet - Across the Miles

I stood there watching, watching right across
miles of shallow and translucent waters in disbelief.

I was disturbed and dismayed perhaps,
because the whole thing just did not look right!

The tropical air was heavy and dense.
I was not there for the sun and beaches. I was not
being a bloody tourist.

Was I seeing parts of Indonesia? Was the whole thing
just a figment of my imagination? Was I watching anything at all?
I could not decide. In any event, we could not
have navigated in these extremely shallow waters.

But then, I had meticulously planned to be here,
come right to the point where I was,

with a friend of mine and a local driver, who
we had brought all the way from the capital
on our chartered drive.

I sat there in the sand at the edge of the
water, splashing in the foam as
gentle waves broke across my feet.

My mind was slowly drifting back to the days,
quite oblivious to the presence of my companion,
when I had been in my early twenties,

aboard a huge ship that had left the port
of Kobe far, far back in time,

on my way to where history abounded and
my destiny still hidden away.

After all, I, at that time, was an ex who had
majored in the Spanish language, not knowing
that I would be reading physics in England

エイミ－、最近のマチュピチュで英語には過去過去完了がないと
言いましたよね？その一例がこれです。なので、 at that time
と言う副詞句で弱弱しく、その不備を補っています。

私にとっては理由は明快です。昔の人たちは忙しくて、
文など書いているひまはなかったのです。なので、
どの言語をとっても、過去過去完了など、あるはずが

ありません。丁度、３世代を超えてのお墓参りが
成立しないようなものです。過去過去完了など、
文の中でしか必要がないでしょう。

中国語でも似たようなことを副詞句で行なうとは、ずっと前に
言いました。中国語には動詞の活用がないので、
避けられないのです。

漢字が複雑なので、動詞の活用まで手が回らなかったのが
中国語です。

これが、名詞なら、言語が何であれ、辞書になくても
自分で勝手に作れば良いのですが、さすがに文法の
根幹はいじれません。

and doing experiments day in and day out
in my postgrad laboratories, let alone
making spoons and chopsticks later on in my life!!!

OK, it then must have been during the night
that we crossed this part of the Straight,
or had it been?

I had no recollection of having seen anything
during our passage through the Straight.

I did remember, though, that I had longed to
catch a glimpse of the Straight
and all those things tropical that you would
naturaly have
associated with it and expected to see around it.

If my memory served me right our ship always
had left our port of calls during morning hours.
I was confused then as now.

It could have been either during the night hours
that we had gone through the narrowest part of it,

or that even the narrowest part had not been
narrow enough for me to have seen
anything exciting during day time.

After all, if you were really out at sea
you would not see a thing but waters and
a few occasional ships and flocks of birds.

Waves were still coming in gently
in transparent sheets of water and
ebbing away in slow succession, breaking
only very occasionally and as they did
ever so feebly as if in near whisper
around my ankles.

My mind was swaying back and forth,
not being able to absorb what all these shallow
waters really epitomized.

In a sudden flash, though, I spotted myself.

Standing right out there!, right at the very front
edge of the huge ship going majestically
down the Straight,

with me standing tall, clutching the railings
firmly, gazing into the vast expanse
of the Indian Ocean ahead,

trying to make sense of life, trying to
see what perhaps lay ahead and yet all
restricted from my immediate access.

I was being Kate Winslet on the Titanic

It had not been 84, but mere 30 odd years ,
and I could still smell fresh paint, but no china.

エイミ－、この最後の部分はタイタニックの冒頭の台詞を知らないと
理解できないでしょう。その時、ケイトは１００歳以上
でしたが（映画では）、未使用の磁器等が沢山あったと、
言っています。


でも、私の乗っていた船にはそんなものはありません。なので、
この最後のパラグラフは、それを反映しています。

正確に言うと、船客の一人はドイツ人のお婆さんで、
彼女は香港で、なんと、磁器、陶器の類をトラックの
台数で５、６台分くらい買っていました。

あれも、もしかしたら彼女のタイタニック？

私もケイトも、でも、ペンキの匂いは覚えていました。
航海中はペンキを塗るのですよ。ヒマだから。

おまけに、皆で大きなハンマ－で鉄板を叩きつけて
サビを落とします。洋上で。私も勿論参加しました。
その後でペンキを塗ります！