Blogger

For some years now, I've been reading a blog by a woman from Japan. I don't know her name, I don't know what she looks like. I know she writes. I know she's been working on a Japanese novel. I know that she finds it weird that her novel is in Japanese, but her blog is in English. She thinks she has an identity-crisis, but, as she asks her readers in one post, 'Don't we all?' 

I don't know if she does anything else for a living. If her blog is to be believed, she does have a lot of wandering time. In both senses -- she has the time to wander, and time does wander around her. This suggests she doesn't hold a regular job - at least not the variety that requires you to swipe your smart-card in at 9 am each morning and swipe it when you leave at 6 pm in the evening.

I don't know how old she is. She talks of college in the past tense; she must be twenty at least. She once talked of going to the countryside for an older cousin's wedding. This suggests she isn't 30 yet. Her tone, her life, her world, all suggest she's in her mid-20s. I don't know if she has a boyfriend. She talks of men here and there, she talks of even sleeping with them. But she doesn't reveal more. She does ruminate on relationships, usually in the past tense, and her posts reveal she didn't like at least one. Something tells me she's single now, although if you ask me for conclusive proof, I can't give it to you.

Her writing is beautiful. More beautiful than you or I could ever dream of writing. It's taut, it's precise, it's clear. It's vivid, it's vivacious, it's whacky.

Her writing is delightful. And sad. Sometimes both at the same time. Sometimes she says nothing sad, she just chronicles what she had for breakfast, but you can sense a sadness in her tone. Sometimes, she says a lot, her posts run to pages and pages, but she says very little. I wonder, when I read those posts, if she's blocking something out of her mind with a shield of words.

I think she has no other reader. No one leaves any comment on any post. But nor do I. I just read and leave quietly.

I read each post of hers many times over. Often, she says just what I want to say. Sometimes, I have no idea what she's going on about -- either the references are too Japanese, or she deliberately hides behind a veil. Still, I read them. Still, every post lodges itself inside me. Her words come out, in conversation, like they are my own. Her ideas form the core of my own writing.

Once in a while, I tell people that the idea I just discussed with them was something I read in an odd Japanese woman's blog. They give me a strange look when I tell them this. Some people tell me I'm a stalker. That I'm unnaturally interested in another person's life. That this is a dangerous obsession. I laugh at them and tell them that I'm not really that obsessed.

But I know, somewhere, somehow, that I am. I know that I can recite some of those posts like they were poems in my fourth standard textbook. Love is too far-fetched a word, and infatuation is too complicated a word to describe what I feel towards her. A fondness. That word rings true, I think. I am fond of her. Very fond of her.

It has been three months since she last posted -- she used to post every other day until then. I waited a full month before leaving this comment: "If I say I miss you, will you come back and write more?" I go to her blog every day, hoping there's something new. There never is. I open the last post and eagerly scroll down to the comments, only to find, "Your comment is awaiting moderation." 

I guess I'll have to wait a while longer.