On a recent visit to an elementary school, I remembered one thing which has been cherished in my bosom for so many years.
I don't quite know how it started, but when I was a 2nd grader the fad among boys was to make "canals" on the desk in the classroom. The wood was soft, and you could cut tracks with the ball point pen. The ball would eventually come off the pen, which one used as a "vessel" which "voyaged" through the canals.
Needless to say, the vandalism was not particularly recommended by the school teacher. You were not supposed to damage the school property. In a strange twilight of illegal activities that is open only to a child, we competed who could make the most interesting map of canals on the desk.
It was a play in imagination. I developed a kingdom, named the places, and the network grew in my mind like a throbbing organization.
At the end of the semester, there was a desk shuffle, and I had to say goodbye to my beloved kingdom. The canals were still within my reach though. In March, when I became a 3rd grader, we moved to a new classroom. On the last afternoon, I went to touch the wood. I vividly remember my canals lit by the sunshine from the window.
I have not seen my canals since. How I miss them.
4 comments:
This sunshine from the window is very beautiful. This afternoon light, for some reason, reminds me of "In the morning light" （朝の光の中で）by Yasunari Kawabata(Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1968) in the elementary school textbook. The sunshine is still...
Dear,Mr.Mogi
May I touch your canals?
How beautiful arts!
Please write your stories.
They touch all reader's heart deeply and softly.
I was really tempted to tell this story to my pupils (who are also second graders)during the Japanese period today, but somehow I managed not to. I knew they would get so excited by the idea of digging canals on their desks, and surely some of them could have actually tried to make their own canals (only in vain though as the desks are made of much harder materials).
Anyway, as they were supposed to concentrate on learning new Chinese characters, I didn't dare to pull the trigger. Maybe next time I will, because I know then I would definitely have a wonderful time with the children, or shouldn't I ??
Mr.Mogi, You have many precious
inner pictures.
I imagined your beautiful canal
lit by the sunshine,so beautiful!
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