New Year, New Country

Jeremy and I are sitting along the banks of the Kamo River, whose soothing currents drift through the heart of our favorite city, our newly aquainted home. It’s New Years Eve in Kyoto, and the wintry atmosphere suspends our marked breaths from our mouths as we speak. It’s well before midnight, and a sacred bell ringing ceremony will commence on the stroke of our new decade, reverberating sounds from the temples concealed within the neighboring Higashiyama mountains.

We flew to the Land of the Rising Sun over a month ago, descending over the darkened skyline of Osaka.  Skyscrapers stuck out of the ground like neon spikes, splashing a glowing residue on every airplane window. We battled jet lag for a solid week, dragging our zombified bodies across crowded streets and swimming upstream through a flood of sharply dressed Japanese businessmen. We felt knocked around our first week; never grasping a sense of rootedness, overrun from overstimulation, and weighing over whether to reside in Osaka or Kyoto. Our guts, deep down, already knew. Sometimes it's only as simple as blocking out the noise.

We boarded our train to Kyoto with our backpacks and boxes in tow, blurs of grayish, city landscape fading away to a greener, calmer countryside.  Jeremy and I finally fixed our eyes upon the stillness of the Kamo River, and our wearied souls were restored. Clarity shot through us like an arrow to the heart, and everything felt right again. We had come full circle, returning right back to where we were this past June... When we each held a cold Asahi by its edge, sweating from the start-of-summer warmth.  When we were falling for this wonder of a country, and the spontaneous, wild idea of moving here was ignited in our blood.  When we had reached the finishing chapter of our around-the-world journey, and yet, everything still felt like it was just beginning.

I followed the composed movements of cranes, white as snow, as they stepped in and out of the shallow waters of the river, and I chuckled. A year ago, when we were roaming the North Island of New Zealand inhabiting a converted Ford Transit van, I never would’ve dreamed we would move to Japan. Sometimes I still feel as though I’m dreaming as I hear the sound of a geisha’s wooden shoes shuffle past me on a Saturday evening or as I scan the stillness of Kyoto’s skyline at dusk from the balcony of our new home, situated on the crest of a hill.

Here, amongst the green, quiet hills surrounding us, the 122nd Emperor of Japan was buried, his final resting place a short, forest-filled walk from our front door. Emperor Meiji, referred as Meiji the Great, reigned from 1867 until 1912, radically converting Japan from a feudal society of samurai and shoguns to a modern-militaristic force and industrialized government, heavily influenced by Western ways. Jeremy and I strolled the misty path winding towards the Fushimi Momoyama Tomb, magnificent Japanese cedar trees sprawling above us. We passed by groups of high school boys wearing clean-cut, navy uniforms, and elderly men bird-watching with binoculars framing their eyes.

We’re bundled up on the frosty eve of a new year, crossing over the Sanjo Ohashi Bridge, making our way towards our favorite, no-bigger-than-a-closet-sized jazz bar we stumbled upon this past June. I’m snapping my fingers to the notes of a trumpet as cigarette smoke clings to my clothes. 2020 will be the year of embracing an adopted, foreign country; absorbing its culture, understanding its customs, eating its ramen noodles, and sitting front seat to an exotic education like no other.

I know there’s power in making a decision and setting motion to it. A body at rest will remain at rest. A body in motion will remain in motion. Here’s to keeping it moving.

Kanpai,

Tera