Winter here is white, up in the hills, though we’ve had our share of snow in town as well.
I’ve been out exploring, gathering stories, making photographs, learning things.
I’ve been using my snowshoes and even when I’m in town, my eyes keep returning to the mountains.
Winter. December blurs into January, New Year’s celebrations bundling the old year into the new. The mountains that mark our horizon out here in central Nagano are cold and crisp and white against the sky, the trees on the higher slopes frosted with snow.
It’s pretty inspiring.
I wrap up against the cold, go out on rambling, think about all the things I’ve achieved this year.
I weigh them against the things I haven’t done, and find the balance in my favour.
It’s been a pretty eventful year.
I’m hoping for big things for the next one, too.
Almost 9 months after the tsuami devastated the town, I was offered the chance to visit Minami Sanriku (or Minamisanriku-cho, depending on how you choose to transliterate it) to participate in their “revival market”. The market is an amazing monthly event, designed to raise funds to re-build shops and factories and generally rebuild the heart of the town that was so tragically obliterated on March 11. The market was full of optimism and shining smiles, and the town seems to be in the process of getting back on its feet, though the destruction is still evident on the flat land. I’m still processing the experience, but in the meantime, I’ve put up some of my photographs over on flickr.
Sorry I’ve been away for so long. I’ve been distracted by the mountains.
I’ve also been busy. I’ll try to keep writing here when I can, but tomorrow I’m off to the mountains once again.
They have a magnetic pull.
Sorry I’m a little slow on the uptake here, I’ve been in the mountains. All this beautiful scenery is very distracting.
A few years ago, Aleks and I took a hike together. A story I wrote about the trip came out in the Japan Times a couple of weeks ago.
September. The air is hot, humid, almost tropical, damp and soft and warm against my skin, and full of the sound of cicadas.
I didn’t think I’d be back here now. I wasn’t sure I’d come back here to live at all – but sometimes a girl needs a bit of paid employment, and every thesis needs some time to itself to grow into the thing it needs to be. So I’m back in Matsumoto, while my guy finishes writing up in Oxford. Apart from missing him, I feel like I’ve been set down exactly in the right spot. I feel inspired, ready to write and to take pictures in the golden afternoon light that hangs above the ripening rice fields that stretch off to the mountains.
In a way, it’s coming home.
I’ve been busy, among other things, writing for the Japan Times:
