I left Japan after almost 7 years of residency in Tokyo working at an ad agency in July 1987. The plan was to travel across Asia, India, North Africa and Europe before coming home to NYC. Since I would be out of contact in a number of places, including almost 25 days in silent retreat in Igatpuri, I told my stock broker to do whatever he thought needed to be done while I was away.
I spent the day of the Harmonic Convergence on the grounds of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, in the company of one Frederic Lustig, an Estonian refugee from the Soviets who had become a monk in Tibet only to become a refugee from the Chinese, thus settling in Burma where he taught English and translated Burmese epic poetry into English. I wasn't really reading the daily news.
Eventually I got to Europe tho, visiting my old friend, the artist Maic Asti, in Copenhagen, along with a dear old friend Annie Schmidt. Then I made my way to London where I saw Diana Rigg in Follies and the English Light Opera company production of Pacific Overtures, which was dizzying after all that time in Japan. Then I got on a jet to head back to NYC.
I arrived in New York City on October 19th, 1987 in the late afternoon. When I got to my old apartment (sublet all those years) I heard the news. The stock market had dropped 500 points. I'm not that much of a narcissist (or a pessimistic narcissist at that) to believe it had anything to do with my return, but I did think it was an ominous return. My broker however, had anticipated something going awry and had sold everything weeks before I returned. All I had saved overseas was safe. At least until I got my hands on it.
Twenty years later no one still really understands what happened that day and why the Dow tumbled. And today things look so much more precarious. I think I'll spend tomorrow in bed.
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