Today I rode my bicycle along a country road near my home, thinking that I’d stop and investigate a Shinto shrine that I’d never been to. Several months ago I had passed by its torii at the side of the road. Torii are traditional gates located at Shinto shrines to mark the boundary between the mundane and the sacred, and to welcome the gods, called kami. I was impressed by this torii and the steep road beyond it that snaked up a mountainside and led to the mysterious shrine. I promised myself I would visit when I had the chance, and today was that day.
I pedaled through the torii and up the steep road in low gear, huffing and puffing as I reached a flat place from which a long flight of stone stairs led up to the shrine. Before climbing the stairs I turned and looked back down the road I had just ascended. As I took in the view of the valley below it seemed very familiar to me, and I suddenly realized that I had visited this shrine before. It was perhaps two decades ago, but the memory of it was very clear. I had never actually forgotten it — it’s just that I didn’t associate the memory with that particular torii in that particular place along the road.
It’s like this with many of the places that I visited when I was merely vacationing in Japan: I remember them, but I can’t point to most of them on a map. When I was on vacation I was often being driven around by other people, and I almost never knew exactly where I was. But now that I actually live here I’m exploring on my own and forming a mental map, and the memories of those long ago visits have begun to attach themselves to places on my mental map as I return to the sites I’d visited. As with today’s visit to the shrine, the return visits are usually accidental, and surprising. “Oh, so this is where that was!”
Realizing that I’d already been to this place, I ascended the stairs and knew what I would see at the top: an old shrine notable for both its height and elaborate wood carvings, and a rectangular storage building that possesses a certain kind of beauty in its own right.
On the way home I had another such surprise. As I rounded a corner, a farm building with a distinctive red metal roof came into view, and I immediately recalled photographing it years ago. At the time I had even marked it as, “Exact location unknown.” It was very nice to become reacquainted with the subject of one of my old photos, and now that I can point to it on a map I feel a deeper connection with it.
What will be the next place that I rediscover and add to my map?