Being from a very rural area in Cumbria and living the past ~15 months at home, surrounded by fields, farmland, and rolling fells, moving to central Osaka has been a very unusual experience. My interactions with nature since arriving here over a month ago have been very limited, to say the least. On a long weekend to Kyoto in mid-September I did climb a good halfway up Mt. Inari and hiked through the Arashiyama bamboo forest, emerging into the valley of the Katsura river with its flanking forest banks. However, this singular day marks the only time in 46 days that I felt dirt beneath my feet in place of concrete and asphalt, that tree-tops rather than highrises blocked out the sun; where the choir of Cicadas supplanted the orchestra of rumbling traffic. For somebody whose comfort has always come from rain-soaked trails through sheep fields and small white cottages dotted amongst the pastures, accustoming to such a sprawling concrete jungle has taken some time.
Japan, I feel, is unique in the layout and uniformity of its cities. Osaka is so flat that you can ride your bike from Umeda to Kishiwada and not even break a sweat; and on that journey you may be lucky to see one piece of sizeable greenery or a park that's remained untouched by this all-consuming growth of grey and green mansions. This is, of course, due to Japan's unique geography and the necessity to make use of any and all suitable land for construction. In contrast to Lancaster, my university city, or Manchester, where my girlfriend lives, I find it difficult to imagine what this place was like before the human urge to build and expand took its roots. When I look from my balcony across the hundreds of rooftops spanning in each direction, at the elevated trainlines and skyscrapers, I struggle to envisage what this neighborhood looked like 1000, 2000 years ago. Were there cherry trees standing tall and proud? Did a stream weave its way through the tall grass? Is my home built on the graveyard of what was once a colossal woodland? Maybe. Probably. But imagining such a thing is a strenuous task; for me it feels as if Osaka was always here - that this near-endless metropolis is as ancient as the mountains, birthed a millennia ago. I have never felt such a way about a city before, never seen a place so densely packed yet running so efficiently. Osaka is a Cretan Labyrinth where everybody perplexingly knows exactly where they're going.
It was whilst sitting on the train to Kobe a week ago, listening to Bill Evans with my head against the window, that I was overwhelmed by a sudden and fascinating thought. Whilst looking at a terraced house not particularly significant, in an area of the city not out of the ordinary, that it occurred to me that this is actually a person's home. An old lady, a young couple; a student, a family, I don't know. And as that small house shot past me at 60mph I wondered who and what might be inside of it right now. A fridge of the owner's favorite food, a pet they've owned since they were a child, a computer with all of their unique behaviors immortalized in its hard drive. How many priceless family photographs are in this house, how many letters, bills, old birthday cards, books? I know that my own home in Abeno ward has dozens of these things - how many does this person in this house own? As the train sped onwards to its destination I looked at the endlessly stretching sea of clay roof tiles. I felt the wonderful sensation of Sonder consume me for the first time in a long time. This is just one house in one residential ward in one city, in one prefecture, in one country. We all have our homes, special people, sentimental objects, unique routines that most other humans don't notice, never mind think about. The picture I've attached to this post shows one random person's home in Minato, Osaka - a building that contains their entire life within its walls likely, so much that they hold dear and find comfort in. It was mere chance that I captured it in a photograph at that exact moment, and they'll probably never know that it's been canonized in this blog post forever.
...I wonder if anybody's written a post like this about my house?
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