"Let those who wish have their respectability--I wanted freedom, freedom to indulge in whatever caprice struck my fancy, freedom to search in the farther most corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous, and the romantic" --Richard Halliburton I guess that is what Japan was to me--freedom. My whole life, I have lived with someone else, always had to be conscious of how I behaved and how it would affect them. In Japan, I lived alone. Well, not necessarily. I mean, I had Rodger and Ariana just next door, across the balcony, and Meagan was down the way, as well as all the other teachers in the building, but I was living in an apartment by myself. No roommates, husband or family. I did buy two goldfish after a few months, though--Aragorn and Legolas. They were pretty awesome company. Didn't ask for anything except food every once and a while. And because I was by myself, I struck out whenever I fancied. There were a few nights where I went for a walk around the neighborhood. It was those nights when I felt the most alive. No one else was around. Everyone was in their homes. And me? I was outside.
An explorer of the wondrous night. The lights left me hoping there wasn't a puddle I was about to step into. The night soaking up the light. I often wondered if other people explored the mysterious night as I did. Or if I was just a creepy foreigner. I surprised many a cat on my night walks. Non of which were friendly enough to come to me, but instead either skittered away or stared at me blankly. The stars, though. With mountains to one side and rice paddies around me, I could look up and see how strange the sky looked, a different angle than I was used to. I tried to ground myself by looking for the familiar constellations, standing on a back road leading up the mountain and snaking its way through the fields before entering the neighborhood. The neighborhood wasn't that large, at least on my side of the main road and my side of the river. Whenever I would go running, I would stay to the area that surrounded my apartment. I would run along the roads that hugged the mountains, taking any road that caught my eye. The houses were snug together, but had a spaciousness between them due to the potted plants that families set out along the top of the short cement wall or along side it. It made the neighborhood more colorful--connecting it once again to nature, despite being made of mostly concrete. When I walked, I would stop sometimes and sniff the cool scents of some of the flowers hanging over the walls or peeking through the fences. Flowers reminded me of my grandma--the one who lives on a farm and is a master gardener. She always has multitudes of flowers growing in her garden and I enjoy walking down the tiny path with a farm cat beside me and smelling the different flowers. Crouching down to smell the smallest and leaning over to smell the tallest. I wouldn't walk up into the mountain at night, though. Too many stories of wild animals and spiders too big for me to fend off with my hands bravely if I happened to walk into their web. Not to say that the spiders were huge, just about the size of my thumb and colored yellow and black and white. Still unsure whether they are poisonous or not... I would stay out until the gnats and mosquitos became too much to tolerate. And I would climb the narrow, cement stairs--four floors, and try to open and close the metal apartment door as quietly as I could. I didn't want to disturb my mental calmness with the jarring noise the door created when shut and the sound reverberated around the stairwell.
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Myself
Video blogger and now a blogger as well. My life in Japan has changed me for the better. However, it wasn't easy... Archives
September 2016
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