Ghost of Autumn

The air keeps holding on to the faint edges of summer. The spider lilies, their vibrant shade of lipstick color that signaled the rains and change of season have withered. Fragrant olive blossoms, with their pungent aroma have begun to sneak their way out. Fall is both coming and here.

It slowly begins pulling over us like a blanket being pulled up upon us, until it finally, coolly covers our entire body.
The daytime hasn’t yet realized the season, but the nights, with their crispness and aroma carries with it the scents of a home cooked meal after a long day and the leaves that have forgotten their home upon the trees.

Even on foreign soil, fall brings to mind the nostalgia of holidays with family that aren’t here. It reminds me of hot apple cider with pungent cinnamon. Faintly, I can smell the first snow somewhere that was erased by the cold fall rain that came before anyone even woke in the morning.

All these moments of nostalgia are coated with gratitude. As much as I miss the smell of decaying leaves and wood from where I was born, I have become to be more comfortable and loving of the signs of fall locally. Both are a part of me now, neither more worth than the next.

I have seen it

Though the thoughts of initial desire and panicked infatuation have drifted away, I still see many of the signs of my love for it.

The feelings have changed over time and my relationship to this country has grown and faded in differing ways. It has aged like a wine. It matured and developed into an equally distant and uniquely irreplaceable part of me.

I fell in love with the people, the peace of the rice fields and the soft smell of smoke from a fire burning somewhere. I still hear the sounds of summer, the calming embrace of fall and the silence of a winter day. I still love the early morning before sunrise where the entire world is just beginning to stir to life.

Small details have replaced the imagination I had when first moving here or from trying to get here. I have become a part of it, despite a certain remoteness to much that is happening.

I find on the ground a lone coin or a child’s shoe and find some joy in it. Even the routine has become a comfort.

I can give parts of myself or more to help in small ways the sense of something that exists here. I am happy to, it is necessary to. It’s been said that kindness requires much less effort than anger, and I have grown to feel that more and more.

So while my connection to Japan has shifted from wildness to a calm path, I can still see it.