new summer

Summer's around the corner. This time of year is always a celebration in this country. When the true heat comes, everyone suffers together, burns together, sweats together. Memory fuses dry, dusty days and humid, brown days together and flashes images of sagging leaves and perspiring street vendors in the hectic atmosphere during festivals hawking perspiring soda cans to perspiring people in saggy shorts and yukatas. Everything moves slower (but not slowly - slowly doesn't exist in Japan, even when traffic is at a gridlocked standstill), but tempers run short.

There are oases too. Shady nooks in parks. Shops along the streets. A sudden breeze indicating that the hottest part of the afternoon is over and evening is setting in.

Same streets, same shadows, same smells, different sound track. Small but big. Dirty but new.