Come and Go
Almost every time I go back to my parents house, they tell me. "you can stay here longer". But I always say "no, I think it's time to go". My friends ask me if I am going to settle down in my hometown, my answer is always, "Maybe in the near future". It's been 27 years since I left my parents house at the age of 18. Now, I am married and have a child. Nevertheless, I find myself returning to my hometown quite often. I was one of those kids who always thought about random things like, "if these floating clouds run into the mountains far away and gets stuck there, will it gradually fill the blue sky with clouds? Will everywhere become a cloudy sky?" Or, "why do people describe these crooked stones on the riverside as round?" I wonder from where the ground forms into an arch while looking at the horizon. Hamamatsu is such a place.
When I was a little boy going to nursery, I once tried to run away from home. May be because I had gotten yelled at by one of my parents. However, I encountered my grandmother heading to my house when I was only hundreds meters away from the house, and I ended up coming back home with her as if nothing had happened. Although the grandmother asked me why I was alone and where I was trying to go, I just kept silent because, right then, I didn't even know. She said, "So you came to welcome grandma. eh?" I nodded. But I wonder what if I didn't meet her on the way. I might have come back with tears from fear or walked across the bridge that I had never crossed to become a stranger.
Now, I know that road leads to Tokyo, where I can even fly to New York. I always think of that road as my starting point.
BOOK PUBLISHED ON, SEPTEMBER 2016.