In search of ME in Norwegian wood
Again and again, I called out for Midori from the dead center that was no place.
Starting this with the last lines from Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian woods.
A brief plot of the book that it is the story of Toru Watanabe, a young man who is damaged by the suicide of his high school friend, Kizuki. Toru falls in love with Kizuki’s tortured girlfriend, Naoko, who is isolated in her own mind. When she goes into a mental hospital, he promises to wait for her. Though he falls in love with Midori, an open and uninhibited girl who represents life. Toru is filled with guilt when Naoko kills herself, but ultimately, he calls out to Midori.
This probably was how I remembered the book when I first read it around six - seven years ago. To me Midori was an annoying character always getting her way, speaking her mind. She seemed not to care for things around her to me. I felt as if Naoko’s pain and trouble were increased because of Midori. That is how the 15–16-year-old me perceived the story. Though over the years the characters and the plot kept changing with every read. Probably it is just me growing.
After the first time, I read it again after almost four or five years. But in the past two years I have read it thrice. I lost the person who first gave me this book, so it became a way to find that person back. Less did I know it was myself I was finding in the book. My grief intervened with the grief of all four of the Characters. My past self, which lingered with grief and felt responsible for certain events empathized with Naoko. Same as her I had lost a dear one to suicide as a child. With her I felt there was someone who felt what I felt. Who had been through what I am going through. But her ending always pushed something in me. Was this supposed to be the only way out? It made everything unimportant and worthless. Why even pour effort if it’s never going to result in anything good.
Naoko’s words, “It’s just not possible for one person to watch over another person forever and ever.” somehow got stuck with me. No matter where I went all I could think was these words. I was probably frightened of being abandoned or ashamed of being a responsibility to anyone that I tried my best to avoid being seen. When things shattered, all I did was ask the same question over and over. It was a curse to feel and not being able to express.
This paragraph resonated with something which walked in the darkness I had stored -
“I can never say what I want to say.” continued Naoko. “It’s been like this for a while now. I try to say something, but all I get are the wrong words – the wrong words or the exact opposite words from what I mean. I try to correct myself, and that only makes it worse. I lose track of what I was trying to say to begin with. It’s like I’m split in two and playing tag with myself. One half is chasing the other half around this big, fat post. The other me has the right words, but this me can’t catch her.”
I had probably given up on myself. The only thing I could do was write but I gave up on it too. Nothing I thought or felt made sense. While I failed to understand myself, the words Murakami wrote in 1987 made so much sense to me. I felt as if this was written for me.
Soon I felt the other part Naoko was chasing was Midori. While Naoko suffered to express herself, Midori was honest about her feelings. Naoko was the embodiment of guilt, grief and despair and Midori of hope and will to move on.
Toru Watanabe became an allegory to me. A man impuissant to give up the grief and despair but still hopelessly in love with life and hope. Funny sentence isn’t it Hopelessly hopeful. But it’s what Toru was. Or maybe life chooses him to be the metaphor stuck between the present and past. Because it was Midori who approached him. Though life gives everyone at least a chance to hold onto. It’s up to the person whether he chooses despair or light.
“Death exists, not as the opposite but as a part of life.” this line simply explained death, yet the lines ahead acknowledged the pain of those who remain. That once you witness a loved one gone then it’s no longer this simple. I remember asking someone what I should do, after losing my dearest friend. And it was probably a bit harsh but necessary that they told me what I can do is nothing, nothing at all. No matter where I go, what I try void is all there is to it. These lines got stuck in my head. Though rigid these words somehow created an acceptance.
This was probably what Taru felt in this paragraph, “By living our lives, we nurture death. True as this might be, it was only one of the truths we had to learn. What I learned from Naoko’s death was this: no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.”
Someone asked me one day if I had read Khalil Gibran. To yes, the question was as innocent as it gets. That didn’t I find my answers there. To which I had in my honesty said, you find when you seek something. I never was looking for answers. And then again, all those words, letting go, to get over with things would strip me of my humanness or so I thought. So, no matter what I saw, whom I met, what I read, no matter how much I walked, the distance no matter a km or hundred my displacement was always zero. But when I reached Norwegian woods it’s as if I finally moved.
I felt as if someone was with me. No, as if I was with someone. From knowing that Naoko’s choice was her own. That Toru did all he could. That no amount of time heals something but the sheer will. That we all human beings are constantly living in quicksand. That no matter how fast we run it’s only normal to be sucked back right into the whirlpool of emotions. But so is the constant fight to fight it. To continue trying to reach land. And to call out for life once you realize your will. To mourn and feel and to share.
Midori made me uneasy because she had something that I lacked. She had the honesty to speak her heart out. To get angry and forgive. To ask and to express her desire for love and care. She hugged her humanness, her desires and her wishes so easily. In a world where Naoko suffered and felt herself as a burden. Where Taru was struggling to reach out. Where Reiko was taking refuge in her solitude and Nagasawa suffered with his demon alone, Midori stood out. In the world of refugee camps, she was looking for Home. Not ashamed of her needs, not frightened of her grief, not drowning in guilt though she too felt all this but her honesty to herself saved her.
And so, I too called out to her, thinking maybe she could save me. And it did help. I am still running after the half of me who have the right words. I’m still in the sleeping bag on the seashore talking to memories left behind by Midori. I’m the one going to Asahikawa. And I’m the one calling Midori with the hope that though I have no I idea where I am she’ll find me. But all I can do is call out to her. But I guess that’s all I need to be able to call out to her.
p.s. -
“People leave strange little memories of themselves behind when they die." And everyone I lost left little things for me to smile or sometimes cry as I move on day to day. From eating a vanilla soft serve with salted chips, giving nick names and arranging phone numbers. And a vast number of books to read. Because reading what they read is like living with them again.
