Baito Musings
(1) Have you ever looked into someone’s eyes and see the exact moment
they light up with so much happiness and love? No, you don’t have to
fall in love or be in love to witness this phenomenon. Just sell
ice-cream. It’s less messy than falling in love. Granted that most of
the time, they’re looking at the ice-cream in your hands and not at you.
But still… Selling ice-cream is very fulfilling. You make people happy.
(2) When I go to my baito place, I have to climb a long wooden stairs. I call it “the stairway to heaven”. At first, those stairs looked so daunting and I always had to stop midway to catch my breath. But later, I figured out various ways to cope with it and improve my stamina. Sometimes, I imagine a wild boar is chasing me up the steps and that I have to run up the stairs in order to save my life. Sometimes, I would tell myself that if I make it to the top without stopping halfway, the blue sky would crack open on the last step and take me to an alternate universe. By coming up with these crazy ideas, I keep myself entertained and the stairs didn’t seem so dreadful after all. Of course, the sky never cracked open (at least not yet) but the view from up there always leaves me breathless (in both the literal and metaphorical sense).
(3) From my vantage point behind the udon-selling counter, I see people come and go. They leave their empty plates and take the memories back home.
(4) I see lots of kids at baito every day. I find them interesting to watch. These tiny human beings are just full of life and curiosity (and tears and snot and temper tantrums). They look at everything with a mixture of surprise, wonder, perplexity and wariness. But then I realized nothing much changes for us as grown-ups. Life still catches us by surprise every once in a while. Despite everything, there are still little reminders for us about the wonders of life. We are still a little bit lost and baffled by the mysteries of life. We are still a little bit wary about what lies around the corner in our lives. I think we just got better at hiding our emotions.
(5) There is an art to making ice-cream. The angle at which you hold the cone. The pressure you put on the pedal determining the volume of the ice-cream that comes out of the machine. The timing at which you release the pressure on the pedal. Before you master this art, there will be lots of failed attempts. The important thing is not to give up while you are making thick gooey globs of ice-cream. Practice makes perfect (-ly shaped ice-cream). I am proud to say that one of the life skills I learned in Japan is how to make ice-cream.
(2) When I go to my baito place, I have to climb a long wooden stairs. I call it “the stairway to heaven”. At first, those stairs looked so daunting and I always had to stop midway to catch my breath. But later, I figured out various ways to cope with it and improve my stamina. Sometimes, I imagine a wild boar is chasing me up the steps and that I have to run up the stairs in order to save my life. Sometimes, I would tell myself that if I make it to the top without stopping halfway, the blue sky would crack open on the last step and take me to an alternate universe. By coming up with these crazy ideas, I keep myself entertained and the stairs didn’t seem so dreadful after all. Of course, the sky never cracked open (at least not yet) but the view from up there always leaves me breathless (in both the literal and metaphorical sense).
(3) From my vantage point behind the udon-selling counter, I see people come and go. They leave their empty plates and take the memories back home.
(4) I see lots of kids at baito every day. I find them interesting to watch. These tiny human beings are just full of life and curiosity (and tears and snot and temper tantrums). They look at everything with a mixture of surprise, wonder, perplexity and wariness. But then I realized nothing much changes for us as grown-ups. Life still catches us by surprise every once in a while. Despite everything, there are still little reminders for us about the wonders of life. We are still a little bit lost and baffled by the mysteries of life. We are still a little bit wary about what lies around the corner in our lives. I think we just got better at hiding our emotions.
(5) There is an art to making ice-cream. The angle at which you hold the cone. The pressure you put on the pedal determining the volume of the ice-cream that comes out of the machine. The timing at which you release the pressure on the pedal. Before you master this art, there will be lots of failed attempts. The important thing is not to give up while you are making thick gooey globs of ice-cream. Practice makes perfect (-ly shaped ice-cream). I am proud to say that one of the life skills I learned in Japan is how to make ice-cream.
Comments
Post a Comment