I love the roof. Here at the BOE I have perfect access to the roof. If I climb all the way to the top, I can even see Mount Fuji on a clear day. How’s that for location?
People say that a picture is worthy of a thousand words, but through travel and living in a foreign country, I’d say that seeing things with my own eyes is priceless. When you’re there, you feel and see it all. You use so much more than just your eyes. If I were going to pick sides, a great writer does a better job of bringing you there, of settling you inside a picture, of insinuating you into the relationships and feelings of a situation or place. Of course using pictures in conjecture with words does a more beautiful job than either can alone.
When I stand at the top most roof of the BOE, the wind is cooler. It whispers, pulls, tangles through my clothes, my bangs, my eyelashes. I can smell the fresh laundry wafting on clipped hangers and clamped balconies. The sunlight seeps up through the souls of my shoes to the pads of my feet and brushes against my skin as if I were a naked jay bird, shameless and full of glory. Though I am so high up I still hear the muted sounds of machinery beneath me. I hear the short ring of movement hushed bicycles below. A school choir practicing with perfect pitch in the distance. The wind caressing tree limbs and sun-lush leaves, flowers. I hear the sounds of doors and windows, working mothers loving actively. And twinkling throughout, I listen to the chatter of fowl as they flit here and there gathering, singing, enjoying the heat of the day. I feel, if I was silent enough, my ears would even pick up the sun being soaked up into the blue roof tiles of the house across from me.
I am warm, cool, and content, inspired. All of this, even before I tell you what I actually see.
The brilliant ocean blue tiled roof, gentle baby blue, cloudless sky, yellow bathed green trees, red checked pajama pants, hundreds of grey, brown, green roofs and darting, gliding, blacks, blues, yellows, reds, browns of the birds in the sky around me. And there, in a greater distance than all the rest, I see the pinnacle, the symbol of Japan, the identifier of their country both to themselves and to the rest of the world, Mount Fuji. She alone rises above the skyline, more stark and beautiful in its grey intensity than all the man made edifices surrounding her. She is what will be remembered. She is what will live on in the histories, in the minds, in the hearts of the world.
And I can see her, from this little roof, from this little building, with these unremarkable lenses enhanced brown eyes. While I lay no claim to greatness, I am a writer and I hope these few inspired words bring you part of the way here and my wishing pulls you the rest. (If not, watch out for the ocean, it’s a dozy of a puddle to jump.)
This is not my picture. It was not clear enough in the distance to see Mt. Fuji today in my pictures. I could maker her out, but my iPad is NOT that great at distance shots. Lol
Wishing you all were here…
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a Pit Stop Over the Pacific 