I stayed in a poor little apartment in Kyoto in the summer of '86 for about ten days. It had absolutely HUGE Asian roaches, the kind they have at the Seattle Zoo because they're so impressively enormous--3 to 4 inches long, I guess. I made a deal with myself: As long as I didn't wake up with one on my face, I could take it. I used to hear one of the guys thundering through the apartment in the middle of the night going after them with his tennis racket.
We slept on futons on the floor, so the possibility of a close encounter was pretty real. However, I never did wake up with one on my face, so I managed...I guess if I had, I would have found a way to manage that too. But glad I didn't have to. I guess he was saving himself for Tuckervill.
"My predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved;I have been given much and I have given something in return...Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and an adventure." O. Sacks