the Spirit of Art Therapy 2

 

 

The eve of art therapy (2)

 

 

"Hey, Seki !"

My one of my classmates called out on the bank in front of the university.

 

When he entered the school, he was in the baseball club, and I had the image that he was playing baseball all the time. However, after a short interval he showed up with the different identity. He became prominent in the student activism, and in a blink of an eye he stand for and was elected as the student president.

 

At that time, there was a stipulation that if you did not take 36 credits for two consecutive years (if I remember right), you would be dropped out - though

I don't know if it is still there. He was stuck with this rule because he didn't have enough credits when he was elected student president. 

 

Using that as an excuse, the university was at odds with the students, saying the election was invalid.

 

The main gate at that time was on the side of the bank. It was closed with an iron fence, leaving a doorway for one person, and was carefully checked by the guards to pass.

On top of the iron fence, there was a sticker saying, "The person on the right is forbidden to enter the campus," just like a barrier in the Edo period, and his name was written in large letters.

There are only a limited number of people who know this time, but there was such an era at Sophia University. It was around the early 70's.

 

 

"Yeah, it's been a long time!" 

 

"By the way, do you know about Miss O?"

 

"No, I haven't seen her since I last met her last year. "

 

"・・・She died.

She had returned to her hometown since last fall, but eventually she jumped from the building and committed suicide."

 

I felt like I had been beaten by a thunderbolt, and in the indistinct consciousness all I remember was taking one of the pink azaleas that had grown on the bank  and putting it in my chest pocket,.

 

All I remember was that I started to paint successive pictures in a kind of trance state.

 

It was a little different from the expression of my sorrow for her death.

 

To tell the truth, the feeling of "sadness" did not spring up in me.

And I was surprised and shocked at the reaction that my friend's death did not give rise to any feelings of sadness in me.

 

When I was painting, I felt the following feelings.

 

--- Most people who know me now will still know me a year later.

But five years later, ten years later, and as the years go by, people will gradually lose the memory of me.

No one will remember even my existence 100 years later.

 

Still more, 100 years in space time is only a moment.

 

So what about 1000 years, 10,000 years, 100,000 years, or even 1 million years later?

 

What about 10 million or 100 million years later from now?

 

As I proceeded with my thoughts, I felt losing my conscious mind and became dizzy.

 

At that time, a black matter suddenly fell down from the overhead and covered the whole body.

 

It wasn't a long time though.

it was an experience that took less than a few seconds.

 

However, the experience was such that the whole being was upset.

 

This matter of blackness was, in other words, the "death" itself for me.

 

Trying to escape from it, I just kept painting.

And what I was doing at that time was the act of asking for a proof of existence.

 

I wasn't aware of it, but the seeds that later led me to the path of art therapy may have been sown at this time.