Reliving the past - Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Toshikazu Kawaguchi
The reminder of the inability to change the past comes in different appearances; it could be the nostalgia from a book that you used to adore or a song that strums at the heartstrings. In Toshikazu Kawiguchi’s novel ‘Before the Coffee Gets Cold’, a return trip to the past in a sepia-hued café can carry more than just memories but motivation that, although the past cannot be changed, the future is in our hands.
In this novel, Kawaguchi brings us along to experience the stories of four people who have visited the small back-alley café Funiculi Funicula in Tokyo. These people enter the café with the knowledge of knowing that one day they will be able to return to see their loved ones or stumble into this miraculous information after the moment has already passed. One thing they all share is that at some point during their life, they are compelled to return to the café to divulge to the past.
This tale is as old as time: to return to the past filled with regret, melancholy, and hopefulness.
‘It’s fine, let’s leave it at that.’
‘This isn’t what I came to say.’
‘What?’
(Don’t go)
‘Why didn’t you talk about it with me?’
(I don’t want you to go.)
‘Well that’s…’
Then our first protagonist Fumiko continues to explain how she accepts the unmovable truth of how the man she loved left Japan (and her) to work in America, she – ‘won’t stand in the way.’
(I thought we were going to be together for ever.)
Anniversary Evening in London
Our guarded time-traveller replays the lost words hanging on her lips, as her body effervescences away into a mist to the present. Her arrival to the café is met with Kazu, the waitress, who introduced Fumiko previously to what travelling back into time entails, along with the rules:
rule 1: once the coffee is poured, the visitor’s time is limited, and the coffee must be drunk before it gets cold;
rule 2: you must not leave the seat;
rule 3: the only people you can meet have already visited the café;
prominently rule 4; nothing done in the past can change the present.
The recognition of naive expectations then the tremulous shattering truth, masked intentionally by Toshikazu through the light cloudy evaporation the visitors must become to reach one timeline to the other, represents the delightful beauty yet volatile nature of the romanticisation of what was.
Humans are trapped in continuous replays every day with the ‘what ifs’ that they lose sight of here and now. The art of mindfully being present. Zen teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh relays this message throughout ‘you are here’, through the power of mindfulness, promoting the practice of living in the moment:
‘When you are concentrated – mind and body together – you produce your true presence.’
Thich’s four mantras introduce lessons of being present, contrasting that to the fictional tale of Before the Coffee Gets Cold – yet, both share significant philosophies that continually prove to hold meaning throughout life. The painful recognition of the thin line between the willpower to move forward, remain still, and look back. The conquest towards the answer deepens the reality of the question we’re faced with. This trifecta is essential in truly living.
Even in personal despair, unable to find motivation in simple tasks, frozen by anxiousness caused by numerous factors – that I know deep down, does not define me – I cannot help but be consumed and simultaneously, consume the fears and ingratitude compiling around me. It is easy to be swept under the rug, choking on the dirt, dust, and desolated emotions. It can prove to be a difficult task climbing out of the hole once the scent of familiarity lingers.
Anniversary evening in Paris
When falling into the memories we have gathered from previous experiences, relationships, friendships bundle, and we are left to sift out the plethora of mess surrounding us... There, we either traumatise ourselves by reliving the very worst or the most incredible times in our lives. There is always some internal biased when reflecting:
“People don’t see things and hear things as objectively as they might think. The visual and auditory information that enters the mind is distorted by experiences, thoughts, circumstances, wild fancies, prejudices, preferences, knowledge, awareness, and countless other workings of the mind.”
Music mix
Essentially, as Kawaguchi frames the book by using pairs of people in different forms of relationships, he simply identifies that love motivates who we are. From the conscious behaviours, actions and subconscious decisions; whether we chose to accept it or deny it – it shapes the quintessence of our souls:
“Water flows from high places to low places. That is the nature of gravity. Emotions also seem to act according to gravity. When in the presence of someone with whom you have a bond, and to whom you have entrusted your feelings, it is hard to lie and get away with it. The truth just wants to come flowing out.”
Kawaguchi’s short stories of the lovers, husband and wife, the sisters, and mother and child, tugs at the heartstrings, with the intention to hum a melody that sticks to your mind for as long, as this question lives within the universe:
