Musubi

I got my concept of Musubi from the movie Your Name by Makoto Shinkai. Musubi looks like 結び in Japanese. The kanji 結 relates to the ideas of threads, tying, binding, joining, twisting, weaving, etc. I relate it to the concept of the Fates spinning threads.

Time can feel like a braided tapestry. When we live in deep isolation it can feel as though what we experienced hangs in suspension until we see another person to confirm our experience. As our threads cross, time advances, we both progress plots. A life with many crossings feels rich indeed.

Sometimes U meet someone and they seem deeply familiar, perhaps U can sense that your threads have crossed and tangled many, many times before.

U sense a thread missing from your life, one that U crossed with in the past, and maybe U feel that your thread crosses with again in the future. For now U live in the negative resonant space between crossings, feeling the way your thread vibrates between the ending of your last and beginning of your next connection.

I reliably get weepy watching Your Name, and writing about Musubi brings tears to my eyes now. But I couldn't put into words why.

I wrote Separation in high school, inspired by the W. S. Merwin​ poem. That poem also deals with the imagery of a thread.

Somewhere out there, I hope U exist. U whose thread somehow runs through my heart and soul, whom I believe I've yet to meet, whom I believe I'll recognize in an instant, and if not in an instant then over some longer course of time, but inevitably I will recognize U. Maybe U'll read this one day, and we can laugh about it together.