A source of gratitude

Happy New Year!

How did you spend the New Year holidays?

I'm sure that many of you will be recalling warm and refreshing memories, but at the same time, you will also be thinking about the many difficult events that occurred this new year.

This is going to be a very self-indulgent piece of prose today...

In 2017, the place where I first encountered Butoh, a form of dance that has now become important to me, was undoubtedly a village deep in the mountains called Kamikuromaru in Suzu City on the Noto Peninsula.

From then on, I visited the Noto Peninsula, including Wajima, once every two years, always buying salt from the same salt shop, and also went there for fishing-related work.

There are days when I am so lost for words that I tend to avoid visual news.

When I think about the people who actually live there, the loved ones who are there, I can't find the words to form, and I can't even type a standard message of condolence.

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The food stall where I worked from 2013 to 2016 was in Kokura, Kitakyushu City.

The stall was set up as the sun went down, and the large pots were cleared away at around 2 o'clock when they were empty, right in front of Danga Market, which has been called the kitchen of Kitakyushu.

However, two major fires in the past year have destroyed many of the shops in the Danga Market, and I can no longer see the fruit shop lady who used to make the soft-serve ice cream I used to enjoy whenever I had time while working at her stall.

Since then, I had somehow avoided going to the area where most of its former scenery had disappeared, but I often went to the old food street that remained on the other side of the food stalls, where the usual people were still doing business as usual.

At the beginning of the year, almost all of the shops in the area known as Torimachi Food Street burned down.

It is very sad to see our senior colleagues, who are in their 70s and 80s and who loved their shops, their customers, and their town, closing their shops as if something had snapped.

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I can't remember exactly when, but it has been since some time a few years ago that I have silently recited a prayer of gratitude whenever the plane takes off or lands.

It was a habit I had never told anyone about, but the accident that occurred at the beginning of the year and its consequences made me even more determined.

The many sad and frustrating events that have occurred at the start of the year have made me feel a deep gratitude for the people who work and live "good" lives, for all the things that support life, and for the scenes that reflect the long time that can never be restored once lost.

At the risk of sounding inappropriate, it shed light on the source of gratitude that we foolishly tend to lose sight of.

If we look around, both near and far, we see many sad things

However, I am grateful that I am alive now.

I also realized that I have no choice but to keep my feet on the ground and focus on fulfilling my own self.

I would like to write it down like this.

May this be a year filled with joy for all of you.

Thank you for your continued support this year.

Noserumi