Feels Like Home

Believe it or not, there are times when being here feels like home. These feelings mostly come about when I’m performing the daily, mundane tasks that are a part of life. It’s not too hard to forget the ocean is less than a kilometer from my apartment, and if I focus on the signs that are written in romanji rather than the various Japanese “kana” forms, I can almost imagine that I’m biking around my college town in Colorado.

Of course, I never actually biked anywhere when I was in Colorado…

But that’s not the point.

The point is that today, as I was pedaling my out-of-shape self to the grocery store clear across town (which is now, ironically, the closest one, thanks to the grocery I knew and loved when I first arrived going out of business), I imagined that I was back home. The sky was a startling blue, its beauty unmarred by pesky clouds. The sun warmed my fleece-covered form, despite the best efforts of the nippy air to reach past the four layers I was wearing & send chills down my spine.

That’s very Colorado.

But the thing that fooled me, just for a moment, into thinking I was back home was simply this: the wind.

Yes, the wind. I will never be able to forget the days when, walking across campus, I would hunch over and literally fight the wily zephyr for every step forward I managed to take. It would lash my face and snatch at my hair, determined to make sure that I reached my destination looking as disheveled as possible.

Such was the case today. Hunched over and struggling with all my might, I slowly pedaled up Main Street as my invisible assailant howled around me, even managing to knock the hat off an unsuspecting woman nearby. The brunette locks I’ve been painstakingly coaxing to grow past my shoulders (and no, they’re not even close) whipped around, stood straight up, and did other tricks I never knew they were capable of.

As delusional as it sounds, I couldn’t help but smile.

Naturally, the illusion was shattered within seconds as a young man, hair slicked back with five times more pomade than necessary, crossed my path, completely decked out in ostentatious bling and a full-length, fur-collared “pimp” coat.

Fur-trimmed everything, worn proudly by both men and women, is very Japanese. (What I think about the current fashion trend in Japan is another topic altogether).

But I swear, for just a moment… I was back home… and if I wasn’t greeted by the same wind as that which rushes through the prairies, I surely met its cousin.