Secretly Wayward

Spring broke and the Cherry Blossoms have started to flower alongside the Asugawa riverbanks of Fukui. I have not gone out that winter except to go to the school I taught. I was faced with a choice of remaining ignorant to this wabi-sabi moment or exploring an unknown terrain some 4 kilometers down. All that life required was I get on my bike.

Thankfully, I heeded the call. My neighbors walking to our neighborhood grocery have shed off the dark clothes in favor of pastel pink and blue. Obasans and ojisans were walking their dogs. Kids were playing at a nearby park. Lightness had settled into town.

By 3 kilometers, the river was nowhere in sight and I began to contemplate turning back. But a group of high school kids walked past me, with exuberance wrapping their demeanor. In Japan, people from Fukui were known to be a reserved lot. They spoke little compared to their counterparts from nearby Osaka or Kyoto. Showing little emotions was regarded a virtue and quite a handful of students have told me about the cliffs of Tojimbo, which saw a number of people leaping to their end. But that afternoon, those cliffs were far from their minds- joy was spilling out on the streets, cheeriness hung in the air. I followed its scent, tailing behind the teenagers, past two stoplights until I found myself at a tree-lined avenue with a shock of pink blossoms blooming on both sides. I got off my bike, took photos of the Cherry trees, the petals that fell, the raining of petals that happened when a gust of wind blew.

As the flowers broke free that Spring, so did my spirits. My Japanese students learned about standard rules of grammar from me, but their example of living by the season taught me to live bravely. In my halting Japanese, I saw the 16th century imperial castle of Osaka, prayed at Fushimi Inari, a Shinto shrine guarded by a fox, lined with red temple gates from the ground to the hilltop, & made a wish for true love in the temple of Kiyomizu. I have not stopped since.