Year 2002, just before turning 20, I found myself at Narita Airport, feeling a sense of discomfort with the baggage tag, orange with black lines, attached to my trunk as instructed. I was thrown into England where my sister lived, following my mother's order to learn about society.
I was being pushed forward in the crowd, seemingly unrelated to my own will, and sat in the narrow seat of the airplane. In the car driven by my impatient mother, who was annoyed with my early morning drowsiness and slow preparation, I was swallowed by a silent flood. I couldn't possibly have any excitement about going abroad.
My relationship with my sister, with whom I used to play a lot, had become distant, and I didn't know how to interact with her once I arrived there.
Inside the moving plane, I closed my eyes and repeatedly tried to recreate the distance and temperature that I had forgotten. The 12-hour flight felt so short, it might have been the last time. Only the deep bass cutting through the air eased the impatience towards something that was approaching moment by moment.
Upon arriving at Heathrow Airport, I found very little information about how to get to Oxford, where my sister lived. As soon as I got off the bus in Oxford City Center, I immediately spotted my sister. The reunion glistening in the rain felt unnatural, but there was a strange sense of relief. Despite my confusion, my quiet journey began as my sister, who remained the same as before, guided me to the university dormitory.
While looking at the memo, I was driven by a mysterious ambition to arrive as soon as possible.
At that time, it wasn't as easy to use mobile phones or the internet freely overseas as it is now, and there was no convenient means of communication to contact my sister. All I had was a note with the departure time of the high-speed bus to Oxford that my sister had told me in advance.
Thanks to the still unfamiliar orange baggage tag, my trunk was quickly found among the mass of people flowing through the lanes. The heavy trunk seemed to reflect my state of mind, and when I finally picked it up, I walked heavily towards the bus stop. Every sound I heard inside the airport seemed like unfamiliar noise, and even the coldness of the stainless steel in the elevator descending to the arrival lobby made me feel unwelcome.
A lonely cafe at the arrival gate. Being unfamiliar, I bought the same English tea as the tourists in front of me. I held the tea bag soaked in transparent water like a charm and got on the bus. Looking back now, I don't think I felt any excitement from the view I saw for the first time through the window.
Since landing in England, I had been overwhelmed by an overwhelming sense of alienation. Even when walking through the beautiful streets, everything appeared gray to me. The flashy neon lights with missing letters, the cobblestones that shone with roundness after hundreds of years, even the hot royal milk tea.
I couldn't blend into that cold scenery and cityscape as if I had become an invisible person. Only the music flowing from my headphones, which I was familiar with, brightened up the gray world.
While my sister was at university, I escaped from the dormitory where I was staying and went out into the city. It was not easy to descend from the dormitory on top of a small hill to the city. I had to ride a random bus and be shaken for a 30 minutes ride.
The city was enveloped in fog, and the sun was rarely visible. Looking back now, I suppose I was particularly downcast at that time. By 4 p.m., everything seemed to be already dimmed. The brick streets, bathed in the soft light of street lamps, showed a different face from daytime. Even with its warm-colored illumination, I couldn't feel any warmth in this place.
As the days passed, the distance between my sister and me gradually narrowed, as if it were natural. My sister didn't treat me specially, and the first trip to England, where everything seemed dry, with no desired sights, no desired landscapes, no desired things, and no knowledge, came to an end in about two weeks. For someone like me who had only been on a few family trips, staying for two weeks without any purpose or interest in what to see or do was quite boring. Of course, I didn't have any desire to stay longer when we were leaving.
I aimlessly wandered around. When I returned to the dormitory, I watched overseas prank shows and Utada Hikaru's live video "UNPLUGGED." Outside the window, it quickly turned pitch dark without even giving a sense of dusk. Only uneventful time passed.
In the following days after returning to Japan, I occasionally reminisced about my days in England. The gray city where the sun seemed to have disappeared. The orange street lamps. The strange discomfort when the sky turned purple at dusk.
I didn't have anything I wanted to do there. I didn't have any particular reason to go. But there was a strong craving for the air of England within me. It wasn't like being knocked out by a punch thrown straight at me in boxing, but rather a gradual disturbance of my equilibrium until I realized it.
"I want to go back to that scenery once again."
I was in a state that felt like losing my senses.
I discovered that experiences obtained from places I didn't think I wanted could be shocking. It wasn't as if I was moved when I arrived at Heathrow Airport. I didn't have the impression of finally meeting the landscapes of Europe that I had longed for. Yet, something small had been planted in the corner of my consciousness, unnoticed, and it was overpowering me immensely.
Encountering this sensation became indispensable for my music. I still had no idea that the small piece of paper with a mysterious message, "You will be famous," that I received from a fortune cookie at the Thai restaurant in Reading, where my sister and I went at the end of the trip, would play a significant role.
The nature of my being, which relentlessly pursues "unseen landscapes" that I will forever yearn for, is surely due to this quietly profound impact.
Perhaps, I was falling in love with the unfamiliar air and gray world I had seen for the first time, experiencing a sense of dissonance.
Original content in japanese from ddnavi (Japan IP only)
thank you for thissss!!!