[ IP ] A Perfect Day

`` I know I should visit more often.'' 
 
 Before the sun even rose, I left my apartment in Saitama, riding the Tohoku line up to Fukushima. As I reached the station, streetlamps clicked off, the sun creeping out from behind the mountain above me. Stretching rays set out my way, a straight line along the waking streets toward Anyoji shrine and further beyond. Men and women would greet me, in their own special ways, as they moved from their homes to the fields. Some of their faces I remembered, the recognition reflected likewise back from them. But I was not here for a social visit. 
 
 Making the trip meant many things, but at the forefront of it all was visiting the family grave site. There, I'd tend the simple, granite pillar and tell them how my year went. The pathway to their plot ran along the valley, butting up against Kuromoriyama. Priests, in a kind act, made the path in my grandfather's day, to return upon my family the respect shown in generations past. A fence, built by my dad, ran a short distance near the grave. Flush against the small barricade, he bought and placed a bench, so anyone willing to trek out this far had a place to rest. Setting my bag down, I sat down and let out a heavy sigh. 
 
 The priests were no spring chickens, and it was getting harder for them to even clean and repair the little shrine they lived at, so I was n't surprised to see the clutter built up around the grave. Twenty minutes later, leaves and brush moved away, I set to work cleaning away the grime. All the while I rattled of little things, connections I'd made, places I'd been, even those minor alterations to Fukushima that they would n't be able to see from up here. They'd all lived their lives in the town as it grew and changed, but never lost the spirit of the farming village it once was. Each of them would want to know, even if some day I had to tell them Fukushima was gone. Wispy clouds drifted overhead, and the first cicadas of the season heaved their choppy melody into the mid-day air. 
 
 Gathering my tools back into the bag, I sat in front of the stone, wishing more than anything for a dialogue. Five years had come and gone since mom and dad's name were chiseled alongside the rest of my ancestors. They'd been far from old, and I was no more than a petulant child when they died. I tried my best to carry on, but Fukushima lost its appeal, their ghosts haunting my memories. Watching the town fade away through a train window, I made my way south. For three years, I stayed away, hiding out in a city far removed from the nature that raised me. 
 
 When I returned, it was at the behest of the temple priests. They passed along a photo, and the next day I was on a train back home. I stopped by the shrine, paid my respects, and made the walk up the path carved out years before. Only a few words passed between us, the priests only regretful they had n't found the photo sooner. It was at the bottom of a box left over from the funeral, and would have stayed so if not for a fortuitous spring cleaning. 
 
 Turning away from the grave, I pulled the photo from my bag. Over time, it had crumpled and frayed around the edges, though my memory of that day fared far worse. My parents brought me up here to pay respects, and spread the ashes of grandma across the mountain she loved. I did n't feel the weight of the event around me, so I stared out over the mountainside while my parents prayed. Fall spread across the hills and mountains like wildfire, and when mom and dad asked me to turn around, the flash of the camera caught me off-guard. 
 
 I fell ten feet, but dad hauled me back up and promised to get me ice-cream on the way back through town. In the picture, I was smiling, the big, dopey grin of a girl enamored by the country colors. No one was at fault, but dad still built the fence and added the bench. 
 
 Out there, somewhere in the choppy sea of spring-green trees, were so many more memories that I shut out -- not for my sake, but out of fear. A life waited for me in Saitama, yet the life I left behind no longer clenched a cold hand around my heart. 
 
 `` I'll try to be back sooner. Sometime in fall sounds nice.'' Smiling, I waved for as long as I could walking back down the path, only stopping far out of sight of my family.
