Sunday, March 11, 2012

Japan: 1 year later

Has an entire year really gone by from that March 11th, 2011?
In terms of events it feels even more than one year considering how much my life has changed:
I got married (one day I want to write a post on that and it'll be happier than this), I moved to a different country, got a new job and things and people around me have evolved deeply.
On the other hand, the memory of that day in Tokyo is still vivid in my head, heart and in my subconscious.
I cannot compare my experience to the one of thousands of Japanese whose life has been irreparably devastated in a few hours by the earthquake and tsunami of that Friday afternoon.
I had a look at my iPad today and read something I wrote a couple of days after the jishin* stroke, when, with a small suitcase, I was on my way to the airport, to catch a flight to Italy, leaving behind me an entire life without knowing when or whether I would have come back. A decision taken in a snap without even realizing that I was putting thousands of miles between me and the man I loved, my home, many friends and the city that had taken me under its wing for 4 beautiful years.
Today I could fall in the prosiness of talking about how great Japanese people are, what a great reconstruction was achieved in these months, but I won't.
Watch this BBC video and through the eyes of its children you will understand the essence of Japan!  



* jishin = Japanese for earthquake

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