Chihiro

Ichigo Ichie is my story. It’s her story too. It’s his story as well. It’s also yours.

Today you’ve met people that you will never meet again. Your meeting will remain unique. Ichigo Ichie reminds us to fully dedicate ourselves to the present encounter. Life makes paths cross for a reason. You don’t need to know why. Cherish your encounter, be kind. A nice word, a warm smile, a comforting look are never forgotten. Somewhere, thousand miles away, someone will remember your kindness. Remember, a single meeting can change the course of a lifetime.

Today you’ve met people who may not be there tomorrow. Cherish your meeting, be kind. Ichigo Ichie helps us to live a life without regrets. Ichigo Ichie reminds us that paying attention to people should be our priority. Keep in mind that your meeting may always be the last. Your words may be the last someone hear, your smile may be the last someone see. Treasure every one of your meeting. Be available today. Tomorrow is too late.

Today you’ve met people that you may meet again in ten years, in six months or even tomorrow. You may meet them again and yet every single meeting will remain unique and won’t repeat. No encounter can ever be repeated or recreated; each moment is the unique reunion of time, space, light, mood, circumstances. No encounter will ever be the same, never will these elements converge again. Treasure every one of your meeting as if it was the last. Every meeting is one in a lifetime.

Ichigo Ichie is violent, sad and deeply human. It reminds us of the time that is flowing and can not be stopped. It reminds us that we are nothing but short-lived. With Ichigo Ichie, we face the strength of time that takes with it a part of our soul every single second that goes by.

We are constantly changing: what we have experienced, what we have lived, what made us smile or cry, what hurt us, what made us grow, all these make it impossible for any encounter to be recreated the same way it happened in the past. Human condition is evolution. Human fate is change. That’s why Ichigo Ichie reminds us that every single encounter deserves our full attention because it’s purely and simply unique. Once it is gone, it will never happen again.

One of my philosophy teacher once told us, “you think you can skip class today because you will come tomorrow? Just know, what you have skipped, you will never get it back in your life. Yesterday’s meeting won’t be tomorrow’s”. It was my first year in university, I was barely 17 years old. I remember this sentence as if it was yesterday. This meeting, this class changed my life. He didn’t know about Ichigo Ichie. Yet, this is exactly what it means. Ever since, when I have to choose between two opportunities, I get reminded of this professor and I ask myself: what encounter do I want in my life?

We often mistake space and time. You miss your hometown but when you get there, you still feel empty, unhappy or unlucky? You miss the place where you went on vacation last summer? So you go back there, but you feel only some kind of void? What we miss is rarely the place. We miss our own memories, we miss the people who were there. We miss this unique precise convergence of identities, moods, circumstances, lights. What we miss is the past. We miss the meetings we have had. We miss something called time. This is called nostalgia. And if we can go forth and back in space, we can’t go back and forth in time. You can return to places, you can’t return to past meetings. That’s why, remember to cherish your meetings because you can never have them back.

When people ask for the translation of Ichigo Ichie, I answer “one meeting in a lifetime”. They always link it with my love life. It makes me smile. Ichigo Ichie means so much more; it’s the story of all my encounters, it’s the story of my life, it’s the story of you and me, whether we barely met each other, whether we’re friends or used to be friends, whether we studied together, trained together, worked together, laughed together, cried together or fought against each other. It’s our story. Ichigo Ichie is my story. And when I’m asked what I want in life, I eventually have a sincere answer : I want to make time.

Chihiro