Men Without Women, Haruki Murakami

Murakami hits home with short stories on the lives of men who find themselves alone… somewhat like myself… so I gravitated toward them. Remembrances of strange dates, the feeling as though these things in your past just happened yesterday. The power of music to trigger and revive memories, sometimes so intensely that they hurt. Looking back at youth and the remembrances of being alone, feeling alone, lonely in this world, no vision for the future, remained hidden away, deep within yourself. “At the time I felt as if every night I, too, were gazing out a porthole at a moon made of ice. A transparent frozen moon… I watched the moon alone, unable to share its cold beauty with anyone.”

To have a pleasant conversation over dinner with an intelligent woman, or lingering over small talk while holding one another in bed…moments we should treasure. On loneliness – its like dry ground welcoming the rain, you let the solitude, the silence soak in. He describes the feeling of losing a woman, and how at a certain time, losing one woman means losing all women.