| Pastime | |
November 23, 2015
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| He was in his early 60s. He retired a couple years ago. His former work place had asked him to continue his job for some years although the salary would become half of what it was before. He politely turned it down. He worked hard and he wanted to use the rest of his time for himself. His wife was younger than him and had some time before her retirement. So he had to do something by himself and it seemed to be a good thing. He could do something without minding others. He was not a person who had a lot of hobbies but he could start anything to enjoy his life. He had started with fishing. He had liked fishing but he didn't have time to go fishing until now. He happily went to the seaside every day. At first he caught a lot of fish and his wife was amazed by it; but, soon, she started to complain that she was too busy to handle the raw fish every day. After a couple of weeks, he got bored of fishing and quit. Next, he bought a motor bike and went touring with a tent, but after a couple of months, he realized that it was enough to go once a month. After these activities, he did various things. He picked up the guitar as well as the
He went to a couple of culture schools, pottery and painting, and soon realized he had no sense of art. He also tried to produce poetry, even Haiku, but soon he came to know he didn't have any enthusiasm to create something. After he gave up swimming and jogging because they were tiresome. He became upset with himself, "Am I a person who doesn't have any sense for a pastime? Am I a person who can only work?" Come to think of it, he went to places because his wife or their children wanted to go. He didn't have a favorite restaurant, he didn't drink much. He felt fear for the first time thinking that he had a long time remaining. On this day, he saw an advertising flyer of a used bookstore and went there for browsing. This shop opened a couple months before but he had never gone in there. Originally he liked to read books but reading books at home seemed unhealthy. Furthermore, when he went to the library, there were so many elderly people there and the sight of it seemed strange. After that he avoided going to the library, and he started to choose to positively go outside. But he was bored going outside this time and came here. He was amazed that they sold a huge amount of books; it seemed not too different from the library or a normal type of big bookstore. There was an instore coffee shop in the bookstore and you could bring in any books without buying. He brought several books he was curious about and started to read them while enjoying some coffee. After all, he was there for more than a half day and read through two books. After this day it became his routine. The coffee shop's seats were good, comfortable and not getting tired easily. The bookstore didn't have any holidays and he went every day at opening time and stayed until evening. He didn't buy books so often but the clerks weren't mean to him. Although he was a heavy user of the coffee shop (He ate lunch there almost every day.). The bookstore offered Wi-Fi service. He bought a tablet PC and could search the book list and know which shelf had which book. On this particular day, he and his wife met at the bookstore and went to a restaurant for dinner. In the restaurant, his wife teased him that he looked healthier than he had when he had gone motorbike touring or gardening, even though he stayed inside every day recently. He said, "I never knew that books give you some kind of power. You can call places like bookstores and/or libraries a 'spiritual spot'." His wife said, "Maybe it's because of the authors' spells that they cast on their books to sell well." They laughed. |
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