I did not expect a historical drama television series about the Sengoku Period of Japanese history to hurt. I watched it as a distraction. The show is also a beautiful piece of art. And as art, it has left me thinking about it long after I am done regarding it directly. I am stuck, in particular, on two moments that reached straight into me and pulled at the part of my heart reserved for my sister.
Warning: below are spoilers for “Shōgun,” so proceed only if you’re okay with that.
In episode 6, a highly respected courtesan, during the course of training a younger woman, says “You see where it is no longer. Presence is felt most keenly in its absence.” She is asking the younger woman to take note of the place where a flask once was, but the entire scene is layers of double and triple meaning throughout, and it is also clever foreshadowing for things to come later in the show.
I cannot get this quote out of my mind. It so plainly and gently captures the pain I feel to only really, truly have appreciated my sister’s presence once she was gone. And yet it isn’t a dramatic or overly emotional statement, either. It is a simple fact.
Toward the end of the last episode, there’s a scene of Anjin and Fuji sitting in a place where, previously, they and Mariko had sat. It is still framed as though three people are there—because three should be there—and both characters, through a significant language barrier, express the simple fact of the third’s absence. It harkens back to the quote above in a haunting way, and it visually captures how I have felt many, many times in the past year when my sister should have been right there beside me.
Unmoored Sister 