The Wedding Present
In 2007, I started exchanging messages with a girl in the most 2007 way possible: on Myspace. Perhaps, dear reader, you’re too young to remember Myspace, or too old to have used it, or too cool in an “I don’t own a TV, I’m reading the complete works of Nabokov” kind of way. But not me.
Myspace was an important part of an indie musician’s existence in those days, and I spent a lot of time on it. In addition to my band’s Myspace page, I also had a personal page, and it was through that account that I was sending messages back and forth with this person who lived across the country. Her name was Lindsey. We hadn’t met in person, but she was beautiful and she said she loved my music, so I was fully ensorcelled. And as such, it was very important that my Myspace page seemed effortlessly but elegantly curated; the best possible version of my psyche that I could present on what was a decidedly clunky, inelegant website.
I tried to seem pithy and urbane (Favorite Movies: City of God. City of Lost Children.) while also trying to keep the pretentiousness within non-lethal levels. I also took advantage of Myspace’s feature that let you embed images within your “About Me” section. Instead of writing anything, I put in a couple of photos by an artist whose work I’d recently discovered and fallen in love with – Asako Narahashi. Her series “half awake and half asleep in the water” was a collection of photographs she’d taken off the coast of Japan, using an underwater camera. They presented a view of the world that was magical, mysterious, and gorgeous, with a point-of-view that felt full of yearning; small, a little desperate, far from shore. The pictures made my breath catch in my lungs.
Fast forward to four years later: Lindsey and I were engaged to be married. A few weeks before the wedding, she had a flash of inspiration (which I only found about later). Though we’d moved on from Myspace, my love of Asako Narahashi’s work remained as deep as ever, and I would reference it often. Lindsey found Asako Narahashi’s website, and wrote to an email address on there to ask about the possibility of purchasing a print that she could give me as a wedding present. An agent wrote back with the price, but alas, it was far more than we could afford. Lindsey wrote back with regrets and thanks.
But then: Asako Narahashi herself wrote to Lindsey, and asked for our mailing address. A few weeks later, now newly married, we got a package in the mail, with a few postcard-sized prints, all hand-signed by Asako in gold ink — with a note saying they were her wedding present to us.
We were so moved by her thoughtfulness, and her generosity. I’m still moved by it. We framed the prints, and they hang now in the entryway to our home – they’re the first thing you see when you walk in. Now, when I look at her photos, alongside the wonder and awe that I felt from the vastness of the ocean and the sky, this note of gratitude rings out, too, like the bell from a ship, or a lighthouse, or something else too far to see.
Here’s a beautiful interview with Asako Narahashi from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Her photos from this series are available as a book, though it’s not easy to find these days. I did find a listing for it on Amazon, and I think some art book retailers have some copies here and there.
— Hrishikesh
Epilogue: We sent Asako a thank you card, along with some music of mine. She emailed us after she got it, saying, “Thank you for your sending the card and cd. How beautiful and amazing they were! I look forward to seeing you someday. I desire for you to be forever happy.”
In other news: Canción Exploder published its first episode yesterday! It's a new podcast based on Song Exploder, but featuring exclusively Spanish-language songs and interviews, with artists from all over Latin America. This was a dream I first had in 2018, and brought to Martina Castro, the doyenne of bilingual podcasting, and together we slowly assembled this season. Martina serves as host, with her team at Adonde Media supporting the production. It’s very, very exciting! Listen here.