Another year has passed. Another year in which I haven’t written much, and now there is too much to write. It’s not often that a year has ended so different from me than it started. This was one of those years, for better and worse.
I’m in Onomichi right now. I want to write “right back where it all started”, but it’s not quite that. It is a place that I have vivid memories of, though. Not in the least because it’s the start of one of the best cycling routes in all of Japan. This marks the third time I’ve been here, and it’s the first time I’ve been here in winter. The first time was at a very turbulent stage of my life, in my younger, “wilder” years. I write “wilder” because I was never really all that wild, but I was definitely a very different person then than I am now.
Despite the Shimanami Kaidou being an absolutely gorgeous cycling route and easily one of the best in Japan if not all of the world, the second time I came here, I could not appreciate it, and I couldn’t figure out why. I had begun to build up my life in the UK and had taken a short week off to cycle Shikoku. And for some reason I just couldn’t appreciate it the beauty of it at all. It registered clearly to me that what I was seeing was beautiful, but I was devoid of the positive feelings that I remembered from when I went here the first time, and I felt terrible for it. Morose. Dead inside. Being unable to appreciate that beauty bothered me for many years after that.
The third time I went here – now – is the year in which both of my parents passed away. This fact still hasn’t fully registered with me. Some people I know experience grief as a massive but brief peak and then it goes away. For me, the initial impact of such a major event barely seems to register, or at least that’s what it appears like to those around me. But then it takes a long, long, loooong time for me to come to terms with it. I’m still a ways away from that.
Cycling the Shinamami Kaidou. Three times. The first time in my youth, too naive to know about the troubles in life. The second time, with all the weight of the world starting to creep up on me. The third time, after it’s all over, for better and worse. The road was beautiful this time. I enjoyed it very much.
Happy new year everyone. New things will keep happening.