Summer has truly passed.
The summer I imagine is still the one on the beach, with a cool sea breeze. When I was a child, summer meant that at night all we needed was air moving through the room. I would lie on a bamboo mat and listen to the wind rustling the leaves outside the window. The summer I actually get is more often sticky clothes and a short temper.
Kikujiro is a good film. What moved me was not just the journey but the way the men around the boy behaved. The uncle had a responsibility to look after Masao. The other men had no such duty. When Kikujiro asked them, they could have refused. They chose to help the child complete every request anyway.
I can't help wondering what would happen if the same story were set twenty years later, in the place we live now. Probably it wouldn't exist. People would buy every ticket on their phones and ride straight through. Even if there was no car, even after losing everything at a casino and getting ready to set off, they would ask someone on their phone to transfer more travel money. Children would not be curious about everything, because they would only be playing with their phones. No group of uncles would spend days running wild with a child. Everyone is busy. Some might even wonder whether staying with the child was a plot, because people no longer trust one another. Thinking about this makes me pessimistic. Simple goodness seems to belong only to movies.
And yet my idea of summer has changed. I used to see it only as something to endure: sticky all over, hiding in air-conditioned rooms no matter how beautiful the weather was outside. Now I have some expectation again—for blue sky, white clouds, beach, sea breeze, and for unlikely chance encounters that feel out of reach.
Whether the heart is pessimistic or painful, there is always something soft waiting to be touched. And from that touch, a simple and beautiful hope can open.