Today is Monday, the day after the Ichinohe Festival. After work, I went out into the streets in search of the last scent, the final living trace of the celebration. But I was saddened to find nothing.
Once again, the streets returned to being empty, with only cars passing by. Once again, the houses that were opened that weekend—filled with colors, aromas, and smiling faces—are now back to gray facades with shutters closed.
If one were to ask the last kamakiri (mantises) or kemushi (hairy caterpillars) walking along the paths today, none could confirm that there was joy and festivity here for three days. All that had been full of color, music, dance, and life was, by yesterday, tidied away and gone.
And it hurts, because the festival vanished even faster than the sakura in full bloom: flowers that last barely a week, though their petals can still be chased on the ground for three more days.
And yet, at 7:30 in the evening, I still hear the sound of flutes in my ear, as if somewhere close there are people still playing taiko and fue. The body remembers what the town has already hidden.
I struggle to understand the speed with which the people of Ichinohe organize and dismantle what had been one of the great events of the year. Perhaps it is because I am Colombian, and the Latin American melancholy does not allow us to let go so easily of what once made us happy: the encounters, the glances, the words, the memories.
That is why, even in March, Christmas lights are still seen glowing, birthday garlands remain forgotten, and in December traces of Halloween can still be found. As if we refused to let the good things slip away.
Perhaps here, in Japan, the seasons mark life’s rhythm so deeply that everything flows with precise order. The seasons have taught them that nothing can stop time. Even the mantises teach this lesson: in summer they are green, now in autumn they turn brown, an army preparing for their final days. Small as they are, they face the world with courage. In them, I see myself, arriving here without full command of the language, yet daring to live, to belong, to keep moving forward despite my size, my limits.
And just as the shops display paintings and photographs from previous years, I too hope to preserve in my memory, in my photographs and videos, what I felt during this festival. Because, for the first time since I came to live here, I felt that I belonged to something, that I belonged to Ichinohe and to this place 13,730 kilometers from where I was born.
I felt that my efforts, at last, gave me the certainty that being here is right, and that my mission and my abilities can truly be valuable for Ichinohe, for Japan, even if the seasons and the passing of time steal everything away, season by season, degree by degree.
The ephemeral, without memory, fades into shadow.And in that shadow, the only witness is the devil.