Fortunate

On the first of January this year, I went to a temple in Kyoto and stood in a queue for an hour and a half, being hit by melting snow falling off the trees, in order to ring a bell for the New Year. This is normal in Japan, and our queue was considered a short one. When I'd done queuing for whatever ringing the bell brings you - general good luck for the year, I believe - I queued to stroke a big stone for good health, and then I queued to get my fortune. Because once I was into the swing of queuing, my theory was: I might as well make the most of it and get everything I can. Which isn't exactly in the true spirit of Shintoism, but is certainly in the true spirit of the British Queuing mentality.

For the uninitiated, getting your fortune in Japan involves giving somebody money, and then being presented with a big box. You shake the box, and a stick falls out of a hole in the bottom. On the stick is a number that corresponds with a number on a sort of ancient wooden filing cabinet behind the person you just paid. They retrieve the appropriate piece of paper from the appropriate file, hand it over to you, and you decide whether or not you like your fortune. If you like it, you keep it and it comes true. If you don't like it, you tie it up in the temple and The Gods take it back. Like a sort of exchange and refund policy, except without the refund (they don't return your money).

The fortunes tend to come in three general styles: great, okay, and terrible. Obviously on either end of the scale what you do with it is obvious. If it's a great fortune you punch the air, put it in your pocket and declare that it's absolutely unquestionable, and if it's a terrible fortune you tie it immediately to a tree and declare you don't believe in all that crap anyway. The problem comes, of course, when you get an okay one, because then it all depends on the specifics. And depending on the specifics is extremely problematic, obviously, when you don't understand the specifics in the first place. To most Japanese people, the ancient kanji, hand-written style of the fortunes makes them difficult to read: to me, it just looks like a lot of pretty scribbles. Worse, there is nothing more boring than reading somebody else's fortune, so the translations I got were lacklustre and vague to say the least.

"Good health," the wife of the friend of a sort of friend told me, after I had pestered her for ten minutes. She was busy with her own fortune, which is fair enough: she'd only met me a few hours before. "You get good health. Not great health, but okay. You're not going to die or anything."
"Well, I guess that's a good thing," I acknowledged. "What else?"
"Your dreams won't come true," she said, scanning my paper quickly. I was naturally appalled.
"Hey - what do you mean my dreams won't come true? What does it say? Exactly what does it say?"
"They won't come true." She went back to her own fortune.
"But that's terrible! I don't want my dreams not to come true! What else does it say?" I shoved it under her nose again. She looked like she wanted to smack me.
"It says the person you are waiting for will come."
"Right. Does it say anything about them? Name, address, telephone number?"
"No. It just says the person you have been waiting for will arrive, and you will have love. So this is a good fortune."
"But what about my dreams?"
"Not this year. You get love this year. No dreams."
"Do I get dreams next year?"
"I don't know. This is just the fortune for this year."
"So do I tie it up? I tie it up, right?"
"No. Because then you might not get love either, and you could end up with nothing. I'd keep it if I were you and just be happy with what you got."

I didn't know what to do with my fortune, as mixed as it was, so I popped it in my bag and decided to think about it. As far as I could see, there was probably some kind of 28 day return policy so I had time to ponder on it. And ponder on it I have.

This morning, I went to my favourite temple: the one in the cave by the ocean near my house. And I stood in the silence and the dark, bowed, put my hands together and then got the piece of paper out of my bag.

"I'd like to return this," I said as politely as I could, to whoever or whatever it is I pray to when I'm down there. "It's not really the fortune I was looking for. I mean, it's very nice and everything - finding the person I'm waiting for and love and all that, and I appreciate the nod towards my health and me not dying - but it's not really what I wanted. I can see where you were going with it, I really can, and I appreciate the sentiment: I know all my friends are getting married and you think I must be lonely etc. But I'm fine, and really I'd much rather have my dreams come true this year, if that's okay with you." I paused for a few minutes, and then continued, feeling guilty: like a spoilt kid returning a carefully considered birthday present. "I really hope you don't think I'm being ungrateful, and I know that by returning this I might just end up with nothing. But if I keep this in my bag... Well, it's accepting defeat already. And I can't do that. It's not even the end of January yet."

I looked at the scribbles on the paper, and then I took it over to the post and tied it firmly up. Then I came back to the bell, rang it and clapped my hands twice, which is what you do when you've been speaking to a Japanese divinity. It's polite. "Thankyou," I said. "Amen. Or whatever the Shinto version of that is. Really appreciate the no-quibble return policy."

After twenty two days I've decided to take the risk and gamble it all, knowing I may well end up with nothing, because that seems infinitely preferable to sticking with a fortune I don't really want. And if it all goes horribly wrong, I can always comfort myself with the knowledge that I get another one next year. And the year after that. And the year after that. And so on until my dreams come true.

Because as far as I'm concerned, that is exactly what is going to happen. I'm just going to keep returning them until I find a future I want to stick with.