「東通りで３時頃」待ち合わせはいつもそこ
Aug. 2nd, 2023 11:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
funkytownosakaI was born in my hometown, but with any luck, I won't die there.
I lived there for nineteen and a half years before I packed two suitcases and moved away. There are a lot of things I appreciate about that city, but I can't imagine living there anymore. Maybe I'll change my mind next summer when I hit the five year anniversary of my last visit, but at this point, it feels like a place I knew in a different life.
I lived in my next city for five years, one of the few "outsiders" in my circle of friends. Everyone else had grown up there and had SO much hometown pride. Honestly, it was a pretty great city. My parents had lived there for a few years before I was born. In an alternate universe, maybe that would've my hometown too.
I tried to love it like it was mine. I didn't grow up there, but it was filled with people I loved and that was enough. They took me to fifty year old ice cream stands in the old part of town where the flavours didn't quite live up to my friends' memories, but their childlike delight made up for it. They brought me thermoses filled with the city's famous milk tea when I had migraines, took me out shopping in the night markets and invited me into their grandparents' homes for family dinner when I missed my own. It became my hometown too, at least in spirit.
Then I left. My adopted hometown had more love than my heart could hold, but it wasn't big enough for my dreams. I was also nursing a broken heart and figured hey, maybe a fresh start could fix that.
I'll visit all the time! I promised. And I did! I visited every time I was in the country, a grand total of two times. Once in May before I went to the US and then once in July the next year before I moved to Japan. Between those two visits, my little found family scattered too. We went in different directions. Some left the continent, others the country, others still just moved to the big, bustling metropolitan city one state over.
On my next visit to the country, how much time will I spend in my adopted hometown? I don't know. Will I still love it the same without my friends' fierce loyalty to shape my feelings? I really don't know. It's been ten years since I moved there, five years since I left.
I bounced around for a couple of years and then Tokyo happened. I didn't plan on it, I fully expected to hate it. I had already lived one shitty year in Japan and felt trapped in my job, in the country and even my social circle. But once again, I ended up with a new little family of friends. And, perhaps more importantly, my own little life.
The old dinky coin laundry I wrote fic in, the dress shop across the road from my apartment built the year Seiya was born that I never bought anything from, the conbini I ran to in the middle of the night to pay for my Naniwachan and Snow Man FC memberships so my registration would be confirmed in time for the nengajou... they're all stupid memories, but they're my memories. (Here's my thinly veiled love letter to my neighbourhood if you want to hear more, haha.)
That meant Uchi was coming home, right? Clearly they still openly, fiercely, loudly wanted him back.
We (both Eito and the fandom lol) didn't get a conclusion to the Uchi saga until a year later.
I watched this video over and over. At the time, I loved Puzzle for what it was: old friends celebrating a place they love, reminiscing about their (mis)adventures and stubbornly holding out for their missing comrade.
Today, I love it for what it means to me: a celebration that I can make myself a new hometown from scratch. Home is where your heart is, after all.
I lived there for nineteen and a half years before I packed two suitcases and moved away. There are a lot of things I appreciate about that city, but I can't imagine living there anymore. Maybe I'll change my mind next summer when I hit the five year anniversary of my last visit, but at this point, it feels like a place I knew in a different life.
I lived in my next city for five years, one of the few "outsiders" in my circle of friends. Everyone else had grown up there and had SO much hometown pride. Honestly, it was a pretty great city. My parents had lived there for a few years before I was born. In an alternate universe, maybe that would've my hometown too.
I tried to love it like it was mine. I didn't grow up there, but it was filled with people I loved and that was enough. They took me to fifty year old ice cream stands in the old part of town where the flavours didn't quite live up to my friends' memories, but their childlike delight made up for it. They brought me thermoses filled with the city's famous milk tea when I had migraines, took me out shopping in the night markets and invited me into their grandparents' homes for family dinner when I missed my own. It became my hometown too, at least in spirit.
Then I left. My adopted hometown had more love than my heart could hold, but it wasn't big enough for my dreams. I was also nursing a broken heart and figured hey, maybe a fresh start could fix that.
I'll visit all the time! I promised. And I did! I visited every time I was in the country, a grand total of two times. Once in May before I went to the US and then once in July the next year before I moved to Japan. Between those two visits, my little found family scattered too. We went in different directions. Some left the continent, others the country, others still just moved to the big, bustling metropolitan city one state over.
On my next visit to the country, how much time will I spend in my adopted hometown? I don't know. Will I still love it the same without my friends' fierce loyalty to shape my feelings? I really don't know. It's been ten years since I moved there, five years since I left.
I bounced around for a couple of years and then Tokyo happened. I didn't plan on it, I fully expected to hate it. I had already lived one shitty year in Japan and felt trapped in my job, in the country and even my social circle. But once again, I ended up with a new little family of friends. And, perhaps more importantly, my own little life.
The old dinky coin laundry I wrote fic in, the dress shop across the road from my apartment built the year Seiya was born that I never bought anything from, the conbini I ran to in the middle of the night to pay for my Naniwachan and Snow Man FC memberships so my registration would be confirmed in time for the nengajou... they're all stupid memories, but they're my memories. (Here's my thinly veiled love letter to my neighbourhood if you want to hear more, haha.)
I didn't learn about my neighbourhood from anyone and I didn't have to share my feelings with anyone either. I put down roots just for myself. That was my home.
Work sent me all over Japan after that. Some places I grew to really love, some places I could not wait to get out of. But with every passing week, I realized just how heartsick I was for my life in Tokyo. I visited every so often just to meet my friends and grew sadder and sadder when it came time to leave. Go "home"? But this is my home!
Things came to a breaking point last month.
If everyone left, would I still want to go back? I asked myself. Even if it was just the stupid little coin laundry and the conbini and the too expensive dress shop I will never shop at?
Yeah, I realized. Yeah.
There's a happy ending to this, I promise! I'm going back! Not to that exact same neighbourhood, but close enough. For the first time in my life, I'm moving back to a city I already lived a full life in. I guess that means it's home.
How does that connect to my meme entry for today? Well, I finally understand how Eito feel when they talk about Osaka. My entry for today is Puzzle!
Puzzle is a mini-documentary style video that shows them wandering around Osaka, eating their favourite foods, taking their old train line, hanging out in their old haunts. It's the title track for their third studio album and everything about it is the opposite of subtle lol
Most of the packaging was pink (one version was blue iirc) highlighting one (1) missing pink coloured puzzle piece. Hey, what could that be about...
This album came out in 2009.
In 2008, Uchi got to co-star with Ryo and talk openly about his suspension. He also did Osen and started getting steady work. He wrote and performed a song called Niji iro no sora e (To the Rainbow Coloured Sky) and it felt like the end of a long, painful journey. (Lyrics translated here.)
So when Eito released this album in 2009... With this song and these lyrics...
Work sent me all over Japan after that. Some places I grew to really love, some places I could not wait to get out of. But with every passing week, I realized just how heartsick I was for my life in Tokyo. I visited every so often just to meet my friends and grew sadder and sadder when it came time to leave. Go "home"? But this is my home!
Things came to a breaking point last month.
If everyone left, would I still want to go back? I asked myself. Even if it was just the stupid little coin laundry and the conbini and the too expensive dress shop I will never shop at?
Yeah, I realized. Yeah.
There's a happy ending to this, I promise! I'm going back! Not to that exact same neighbourhood, but close enough. For the first time in my life, I'm moving back to a city I already lived a full life in. I guess that means it's home.
How does that connect to my meme entry for today? Well, I finally understand how Eito feel when they talk about Osaka. My entry for today is Puzzle!
Puzzle is a mini-documentary style video that shows them wandering around Osaka, eating their favourite foods, taking their old train line, hanging out in their old haunts. It's the title track for their third studio album and everything about it is the opposite of subtle lol
Most of the packaging was pink (one version was blue iirc) highlighting one (1) missing pink coloured puzzle piece. Hey, what could that be about...
This album came out in 2009.
In 2008, Uchi got to co-star with Ryo and talk openly about his suspension. He also did Osen and started getting steady work. He wrote and performed a song called Niji iro no sora e (To the Rainbow Coloured Sky) and it felt like the end of a long, painful journey. (Lyrics translated here.)
So when Eito released this album in 2009... With this song and these lyrics...
あの頃抱いてた夢
近づいてるの？ 遠ざかってるの？
The dream you held onto back then
Are you near it? Are you far away from it?
さよなら 迷いなきあの日よ
いつの日かまた会えるよね
Goodbye to the day where I had no doubts
Someday we’ll be able to meet again, right?
近づいてるの？ 遠ざかってるの？
The dream you held onto back then
Are you near it? Are you far away from it?
さよなら 迷いなきあの日よ
いつの日かまた会えるよね
Goodbye to the day where I had no doubts
Someday we’ll be able to meet again, right?
That meant Uchi was coming home, right? Clearly they still openly, fiercely, loudly wanted him back.
We (both Eito and the fandom lol) didn't get a conclusion to the Uchi saga until a year later.
I watched this video over and over. At the time, I loved Puzzle for what it was: old friends celebrating a place they love, reminiscing about their (mis)adventures and stubbornly holding out for their missing comrade.
Today, I love it for what it means to me: a celebration that I can make myself a new hometown from scratch. Home is where your heart is, after all.
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