Remembering Kitami

In the low hills of Setagaya, Japan, there is a small town that I used to call home.

Kitami, Setagaya is a part of Tokyo most don’t know about. Recently, I picked up a romance manga that centers around the same vicinity of where Kitami is, and it left me nostalgic of what was once a place I had bookmarked as ‘home’ on Google Maps (the modern woman’s definition of ‘home’, I believe).

From Noborito station, you could see the rest of Tokyo as it touched the sky.

Around 20 minutes away from Shibuya, it was barely a stone’s throw away from the happening Shimokitazawa district. On days I felt bored, I used to hop on the train after biking a good 5 minutes from my apartment complex, and peruse the same stores I frequented in the self-proclaimed Williamsburgh of Tokyo. I found one of my favorite sweaters there for only $5, and sometimes think about the other things I missed out on since I left.

When I took lunch in my second-story flat, many times I’d feel an eager craving for bread. To get the best bread, I’d usually have to make a morning trip to the corner of a block only locals remember, and if I was lucky, there’d be at least one thing of interest for my lunchtime pecking. I’d get lost in the streamlined paths leading to the nearest river only to be taken to the same places I always went. But, as the old stories say, you could never step in the same river twice.

Jindaiji Temple, in Chofu, one of the largest cities nearby

If you are gone somewhere for a week, a day, or even a month, what makes you miss where you used to be? Does the memory of what was once your everyday delude the perception of your current routine? Or is it that now that you’re gone, everything seems better than before, in the back of your head as a distant, sweet memory?

Does that mean we should always stay in the same place, so we are not to miss it again? Or does that mean we should go where our heart pushes us to go, so we can savor the memories we had to make it that much sweeter?

There are some parts of Tokyo I don’t miss much. Sometimes, when I think “Tokyo”, I think of Shibuya, the hustle and bustle of an undying nightlife, and the negative energy that comes with a big city that can tire many people out.

I think what I miss is my Japan, and the special places that made my time there something I’d like to repeat, when I’m good and ready.

Meiji-Jingu Gaein, close to the Olympic Stadium

Remembering the memory of a small town that used to be my home, I began to recall everything else that made me feel an inner happiness that can be found in any corner of the universe.

The serenity of a calm afternoon biking alongside the green of a local park. The wind against wide fields that would make it wave like a great ocean, and how quiet movement would seem on the countryside of another world. A slow day at a farmer’s market, saying hello to the people I can’t quite place anymore. How sweet a greeting would seem, on a nice day in the edge of city where no one knew who you were.

Kitami to me is the embodiment of how I can make somewhere a home; through the people I meet, the environment I’m in, and in the experiences I have. I hope moving forward that there are more “Kitami”’s I get to call home, only to become bittersweet memories that I dream of returning to.