March 01, 2026

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My Heart Will Go On

I'M LYING IN a hospital bed, trying to process what happened. But all I can focus on are popular song titles: Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson's `Nothing Breaks Like a Heart' … Céline Dion's `My Heart Will Go On' … Blondie's `Heart of Glass' … The Bee Gees' `How Can You Mend a Broken Heart' … Sting's `Be Still My Beating Heart' … No! Not that last one! The last thing I want is for my heart to be still. Please, please, please keep beating. It's only been a few days since I was taking advantage of a gorgeous September Friday to play hooky. I'd decided to leave my home office to wander around New York City and then to make up the work time over the weekend. The day had been perfect. I got a free facial offered by a cosmetics company in Herald Square. I ate a delicious chopped salad for lunch at one of my favourite restaurants. I used a gift card I'd carried around for months to get some new lingerie. Then, as I was feeling perfectly content, wondering what to do next, I felt a strange sensation in my chestIt wasn't painful. It was just weird. And somehow it also felt deeply, seriously wrong. It felt as if someone had taken an elastic bandage and wrapped it around my chest. A tightness, though not overly tight. And I was overcome with a feeling of almost existential dread, as if that elastic bandage, meant to heal, was going to kill meI walked to the train station and headed home. Once there, I drank some water, then sat on the couch, trying to breathe deeply and stay calm. Soon the strange feeling disappeared, and I tried to forget it had ever

LAND OF THE HAPPY CAT

GOTOKUJI TEMPLE, TOKYO One of Japan's famous cat symbols is the white waving cat known as a maneki-neko. You'll see these in homes and businesses all over the country, but only at Gotokuji in south-west Tokyo will you be surrounded by thousands of themAround the 16th century, goes the legend, a feudal lord who was caught in a rainstorm near Gotokuji saw the temple's cat beckoning him in to shelter. Once he was safely inside, lightning struck the point at which he'd been standing. Feeling that the beckoning cat had saved his life, the lord bestowed his patronage on the temple turning the simple place of worship into a temple of great standing.Today, people place their ow n waving cat sculptures at Gotokuji for good luck and prosperity in business and to bless their own furry friends. If you want to do the same, you can buy your own cat-themed ema (prayer plaques) at the shop insideIf, however, you'd prefer to bless your relationship, you'll want to head to Tokyo's second waving cat worshipping spot, the Imado Shrine in the historic Asakusa district. This competes with Gotokuji as the original home to the figure--and has its own fun story to bootBack in the day, the Imado area was famous for pottery and legend has it that one night, a local resident who couldn't afford to keep her beloved cat, had a dream where the cat told her to make dolls in the shape of a waving cat. Using local pottery, she created some in the design the cat had shown her, and started selling them at the shrine. They were so popular they raised her out of poverty-- and created a Japanese iconKISHI STATION, WAK AYA M A Nitama, the stationmaster at Kishi station in Wakayama, would watch trains from her stationmaster's office. After a few minutes, she would roll over, lick her feet and go to sleep. The average stationmaster would probably get sacked at this point, but the