Walking My Neighborhood

On a sunny autumn afternoon, I walked around the town where I grew up.

I started off from a train station. I used to run to the platform to catch a train to my senior high school. 

I passed a railway crossing, and walked to my elementary school. For six years, the premises of this school was a small universe to me. I was a kid who loved a dodgeball and a school lunch. The pedestrian bridge hasn’t seemed to change after 30 years.

I headed to the neighborhood where I used to live. Along the way, there’s a small park. I remembered one evening I sat on a bench and cried for no reason. There was a water fountain which I used to give water to my dog.

I recognized some of the houses from my memory. They all looked old. A big house on the corner of the block looked empty. Time passes, people move.

I turned the corner of a street where my house used to be located. A taxi passed me. There was an old lady on its back seat. My late grandma would take a taxi on the way to and from a station when she went out. 

I stood on the street where my old house used to be. My house was knocked down 10 years ago, and there is a new house. Someone’s life is already there for 10 years. The only thing I could recognize from my memory was an electric pole on the street.

I looked around and tried to recall the view I saw when I was a kid.

This place used to be mine. I played here almost every day. I drew pictures on the street with chalks. I learned how to ride a bicycle on this very street. I practiced roller-skating and walking on bamboo stilts. I enjoyed fireworks in the summer evenings. I built my first snowman. I brushed my dog. That electric pole must have seen me blowing soap bubbles. 

Those days are all gone.

I started walking again and headed to my kindergarten. My mom took me there every morning for a year. I remember the warmth of her hand and weight of a waterbottle.

I passed roadside trees which I had captured cicadas. I kept walking.

I walked through other park. That park has a beautiful view over the town of Nishinomiya. I used to have this view every day, yet never appreciated.

My junior high school was located in the middle of a mountain, and it would take 15 minutes to walk up a pathway in the wood to the school. It was getting dark, but I was tempted to follow the route I used to take everyday 23 years ago. 

As I was walking up the path, I remembered my school days. I was bullied by one of the classmates. My friends told me that he hates me because I was taller than him. I didn’t understand why he had to bully me back then. But now I realize it was because of the pressure from our gender stereotype. He didn’t like me because he believed girls have to be weaker than boys. He didn’t like me because I was not afraid of him. Sick patriarchy system, I cursed the society as if I still were a 14-year old. I passed a group of school kids. They were from the same school I have been. I used to be like one of them. I thought all adults are stupid and I didn’t want to be like them. Have I become like one of those bonehead adults, or else? 

I arrived at my junior high school. The sun has already gone and the city lights started to glow. There was a last hue of sunset in the sky. 

I always wanted to go somewhere else, I thought to myself. 

I was always dreaming about the life somewhere far from here. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to live outside of this town, this city, this region and this country. I was a kid who was always looking up the sky and wondering how it would be like to be on an airplane or a spaceship. 

I shook my head and started to walk back home. It was already dark. But the air was not too cold. I remembered the days I took my dog for a walk.

I loved walking with my dog. She was a lot of fun. I walked down the hill, along the river where I used to walk with my dog almost every day.

Why I decided to leave this town, I wondered. I grew up in such a lovely neighborhood. It is certainly an ideal environment I would hope to give to my kid if I had any.

But when I was living in this hood, that life didn’t seem to be the goal I wanted to pursue. I wanted to go somewhere. I wanted to meet someone, create something new and make a difference.

I looked up the sky. Orion was there as it always be.