Did I realise? All along, I have been peering at the shimmering jewel; these narratives of enchanting love show the reflections of one Shizuku Tsukishima. I collect the embers of her story; a torch which blazed gallantly, lighting my way through the unfamiliar crevices of a new stage of life.
In Western Tokyo, Shizuku flips through the books she borrowed from the library. A repeated motif catches her eye – the name, Seiji Amasawa. Perturbed, she wonders, which other student in the school could possibly share her veracity for literature? With his name occupying her mind, she spots a rotund cat riding the train on her way home; a cat whose tail swished with petulance, leading to an odyssey which ultimately ends with her scaling the neighbourhood’s hill to discover Nishi Shirou’s quaint antiques shop. Within, she meets a statuette of a debonair cat named The Baron, watchful and silent. In the mystical antiquity and homeliness of the store, inspired by the avuncular kindness of Shirou, Shizuku’s love for the places around her inspires her to dig deeper into her soul. She feels safe to experiment, knowing the gravity of failure was cushioned by this found home.
The antique bric-à-brac kept by Shirou are dusty and old-fashioned; they hold no real monetary value. Perhaps others may walk past his shop and dismiss it as tacky, maudlin nonsense, but it is precisely the sentimentality of the narratives he has cultivated for each and every knick-knack that draws Shizuku in. Her admiration for the delicate care that Shirou puts into his shop incentivises her frequent visits.
The entire sequence – of Shizuku tailing the petulant cat to her wide-eyed wonder at Shirou’s shop – was what played in my mind as I treaded from place to place in Tembusu College, feeling strangely wistful under a canopy of obscured but resilient stars.
Eventually, she becomes acquainted with Shirou’s grandson, an aspiring luthier. It is not long before she learns of his name – Seiji Amasawa; the bibliophile whose name had occupied her subconscious. Upon Shizuku’s request, he begins playing, expertly on his violin, the melody of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads”. It is a song that Shizuku earnestly sings the lyrics to, like a canary chirping freely and tunefully. Through that display of talent, she recognises two things concurrently – that she is falling in love with Seiji because of his commitment to his craft, and that she wants to fall in love with her art in the same blissful and headfirst way that he has.
You see, I saw in Shizuku, the film’s protagonist, reflections of myself in her characterisation, most prominently in that nurtured conviction to write a story. It must have been this subconscious internalisation that allowed me to draw parallels between her narrative and mine. In the process of pursuing her interest in fiction writing, she ends up alienating her academics, causing her parents to intervene. At the dining table, Shizuku’s father, stoic, pragmatic but filled with love for his daughter, calmly tells her that she is free to pursue whatever path she wishes to follow. But the caveat is this – the consequences of her choices are burdens she will have to learn to carry alone. A harsh love, one that we tend to curse, but grow to appreciate with the rose-tinted lenses of retrospect.
The nicotine stench of Shizuku’s father’s cigarette singed my nostrils as my parents conversed in my room. It was this scene which grounded me. It was my source of comfort in the eye of the hurricane, when I felt torn asunder by vortexes of discomfort and unfamiliarity.
Concurrent to being beleaguered by her parents’ armada of arguments, Seiji departs to Cremona to embark on a deep study on the craftsmanship of violins. In his absence, Shizuku tears herself up over reams of inscribed manuscripts, finding emptiness in the sudden dearth of his companionship. She finds herself asking, had she started writing to chase his shadow? To pantomime his passions? After all, he seemed so certain in what he wanted.
The self-directed curses borne from doubt and imposter syndrome, the first drafts on notebooks scrunched into paper balls, and the complete immersion into her imagined world, where the Baron ferries her through dreamscapes in a bid to be reunited with his lover – this is the treacherous process of self-discovery; of learning to love herself and the time spent nurturing her passion.
Shizuku, having toiled, sweated and wept over the creation of her whimsical fictional world, returns to Shirou, humbly requesting him to read her manuscript, asking for his unabashed, unfiltered critique. Once he was done reading her work, he admitted that her writing was imperfect and patchy. But then, he smiled as he brought out a sparkling piece of turquoise trapped within granite, passing it to Shizuku as he said, “The rough stone is inside you. You have to find it and then polish it. It takes time and effort.”
The tip of my pin is a utility knife, one which carves stories into the bark of my cork board. Another postcard, another picture, another relic that reminds me of the reason we exist. The pin punctures the porous surface, a new adornment added – “Run NUS – 10K792”. Each memory pierced whets the knife; one day, it will be sharp enough to reveal the glimmering jewel within.
Shizuku is ultimately able to properly reciprocate the adoration that Seiji shows her. That is what love is about. You absorb the love exuded from the places and people around you, bottle it in your heart, and through your own expressions, actions that can only be performed by you – uniquely you, idiosyncratically you – love is spread with every step you take. The cycle of love is not a smooth-sailing journey, but its comforting, reaffirming, and eternal self? That is something worth fighting for.
Still, love remains, forever, an incomplete endeavour. Ironic, a self-purported completionist celebrating something unfinished. Well, don’t you see? It’s too early to finalise a conclusion. The future has to be written; these boundless loves have yet to mature. Have our passions been immortalised within the walls of our corridors? Within the rooms we occupy in our College? What should we do with our time? How do we become purveyors of passion? When, a decade from now, a certain freshman takes your place and lugs their luggage through the hallowed halls of Tembusu College for the first time, will they feel enveloped by the embrace of love from years prior?
A particular line from that delicate film resurfaces in my consciousness. “Oh, can’t you be in love without determining your future first?”
Ruminating about the future is inexplicably daunting; the omnipresence and burden of love, its entanglement with every facet of the environment we live in, of the people we choose to become, is cumulative. The comfort that I draw from Yoshifumi Kondo’s first and last film with Studio Ghibli has inspired me to craft this piece. This is my manner of transmitting love, of presenting it to my peers and preserving it for our posterity. So, be it with people, or with activities, or with our environment, every love starts from the heart’s softest murmur. With time and care, they grow in intensity, reverberating through the spaces you inhabit. So, be open, put yourself out there, and listen to the whispers of your heart.
After all, every love has its whisper, and every heart its story to tell.
Banner image from Unsplash
Cover photo & image from “Whisper of the Heart” (1995), directed by Yoshifumi Kondō, Studio Ghibli. Retrieved via Imgur.
About the Author:
Jeron Sia, a Year 1 Pharmaceutical Science student, loves running because it gives him an excuse to listen to more music. He would like to implore people to listen to Just Like Heaven by The Cure.