You are not there. / But since there’s a cliff in the landscape, / and I’m standing at its edge / holding a flower / and smiling, / you must be coming soon. / A life must have gone / through my life once.
Kiki Dimoula, tr. by Cecile Inglessis, from The Brazen Plagiarist: Selected Poems; “Photograph 1948”
Sigh. I’ve written and deleted this post a couple of times because like many of you I feel really sad too. But in the end, I wanted to share with you this boy’s words. I know it sucks and it’s unfair, but I think it’s important to understand that Yuzu was fully aware of his condition and his options, and he made a conscious decision to compete despite what it would cost him, and came to peace with that choice.
So I’ll tell you first, this isn’t a happy piece. He’s laid out his condition quite clearly, and he’s very realistic about we he can and cannot do. Of course he is sad, hurt, vulnerable. But, as he says, that too is Hanyu Yuzuru. To me, his ability to face his feelings honestly has always been his strength, and his willingness to share that with us I think, is his gift.
Shuuzo’s interview, Sponichi’s (sport’s daily) version of the press con, and a little bit of Houdou Stations’s footage of the press con under the cut.
Yuzuru Hanyu of Japan during the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating at the Helsinki Arena on November 2-4, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. (Photo by Joosep Martinson - International Skating Union (ISU)/ISU via Getty Images)
wish customer service jobs operated w video game standards, so a customer would come up to me and i’d say “greetings traveler! looking to trade?” and they’d only had 4 options for their response
i’d just stand there wiping down the same part of the counter for 8 hours until my shift ended and then id drop everything and walk away and if you tried to interact with me i’d just keep running into you silently until you moved
