5 Centimetres Per Second - a film

Photo credits: iifatree.blogspot.com

Language, for to all its subtleties, are not easily translated. For that, I truly wished I could understand the dialogue of this film first hand, rather than through an interface. There are so many minds out there to be explored, so much to grasp, yet all at once limited by my meagre capabilities.

Every time I walk into Eslite Bookstore, I leave with a new reading list. Yet always, I will be drawn to the other books. Those are ones I would have to forge through. The ones that would now take me days to read and understand. The ones not easily beget, not due to scarceness and rarity, but that I could not easily obtain from where I am. The ones publishers have put enormous effort into translating from Japanese and Korean. Or even other foreign, non-English books. The ones I would pick up and have an immense desire to read, but other constraints will come calling - time, family, commitment - and I'll be forced to put it down.

I have never been able to find the same environment as Eslite in Australia. Maybe because I haven't looked hard enough. But with the closing of Borders in late 2010 due to changing reading cultures, the little window of exploration and opportunity just seemed to have completely disappeared.

I miss that. I miss wandering through bookstores, picking up books here and there and reading snippets. I look at the books written in Chinese on our family bookshelf and wonder how I ever fell out of the habit of reading them. How had I ever? How could I? Not knowingly, slowly gave up on those other worlds out there.

I'm rambling and nothing makes sense, but after watching 5 Centimetres Per Second, all these feelings mixed with my experiences have surfaced. As always, I wanted to write it down. If not as a record, as a means of better understanding myself. Even now, I'm still trying to figure myself out.

That said, I absolutely loved, loved the scenery in this film.