Land of Tomorrow : Bike Ride to the End of the River

While I was working on my dissertation this summer in Madison, I religiously walked to the lake twice a day, once at lunch and once at sunset. The openness of the water and its sound, the sky above it, unhindered by even the slightest interference of horizon, always opened my chest in a way that was much needed during those 14 hour days hunched over my computer. And during this time I became quite an aficionado of sunsets. I stopped taking pictures long ago, every moment surpassing the previous one and something always missed in that second that the camera opens its lens to half heartedly capture the moment.

So today, I biked further away from the hills of inland Japan and followed the river to where it opens into Osaka Bay. On my way I joined the people of the river, doing the things that they cannot do elsewhere: practicing recorder with music propped on bike basket and handle bar; building a fire; throwing leaves with toddler fascination; being fed by those that dwell in one of the many tents; practicing trumpet; doing calisthenics. And at the end of the path was the end of the sidewalk under a large bridge. An urban meeting ground. That place where river becomes bay become sea and the water of the earth becomes the water of the ocean connected to the tides of the moon. I sat and enjoyed a similar but very distant feeling to the one of the lake in Madison. A foreign familiarity.

I took the place of a golfer and as I sat there a runner came along and quickly turned back having met his destination goal. I wanted to yell to him, "Hey wait, look, this is really cool!" But I realized that we all have other places to be eventually. And in a few minutes I knew I'd get back on my bike and leave this water to the fickle ducks, more loyal than I. In a few months the sun will likely set in the mouth of the river and I'll be sure to return.