Yesterday I was heading home, almost to my front door, when I noticed two elementary school kids hunched over on the side of the street. One giggled. The other shrieked. Then a third kid came over, grabbed a stick, and started poking at something.
Now I was curious. Since a 6-foot-2 gaijin stranger approaching kids on the street is generally considered a bad look in Japan, I went inside, dropped my things, and came back a few minutes later once they were gone.
And there it was: a blue gummy worm. A departed piece of street candy lying on the pavement that three kids investigated like a crime scene.
When I’m new somewhere, everything earns a second glance. I don’t know what’s normal yet, so nothing is. A vending machine selling ramen, or a decorative drain cover, a giant gorilla hanging off the roof of a Family Mart or a tiny shrine stuffed impossibly between two buildings. A guy passed out on a bench because, why not?
Then, over time, my brain starts filing more into the ‘meh’ folder. The route home gets more efficient and less visible.
That’s one reason I love Tokyo. I’ve been here six and a half years, and the city still interrupts me. Every week I see something that makes me stop. Every run turns into a tiny photo expedition...a strange sign or a single little Anpanman shoe sitting neatly on a ledge. A street corner that looks different at 5:47 p.m. than it did on this same run yesterday morning.
Maybe that’s part of why I’ve kept chasing foreign places. New cities make curiosity easy. They do the work for you.
The harder trick is keeping your eyes open after a place becomes yours.
Those kids on my street don’t have better eyes than we do. They just haven’t yet decided what isn’t worth their attention.
I bet there was a time in your life when you would have seen the blue gummy worm too.
Maybe even poked it with a stick.
-Steven
Sunday, 3:19 p.m., sitting on my balcony in Tokyo
🎧: Top Back by T.I. (one of my yoga instructors, this super cool guy named Daisuke, had that on in a class this week... natsukashii...)