Later on, I will be sharing a post in part of the Show Me Your Neighbourhood series, started by The Piri-Piri Lexicon, the amazing blogger, learned in linguistics and part of a 4-language family living in Germany. I will be posting a more linear post, but here is a more poetic ode first.

   

My neighborhood is tufts of snow, heavy hanging dandelion before they blow away,

sakura spring

chartered busloads of visitors eager for momiji, the palette of maple printed on pointed leaves.

My neighborhood is cicadas buzzing, students holding long staffs in hand for kendo practice after school,

and long kimono pants at graduation.

The steam of sticky rice pounded under a mallet or paddle.

My neighborhood is a shizukana matcha–

a quiet area with neighbors smiling down from bikes and all of the glass removed fro would-be windshields as everyone goes on foot or skinny bike tires.

Here we know every cat, every garden and owner face-to-face.

This is a hammock in the trees, an onset set in the mega-city. It is running into the woman who helps me mail my packages overseas, still unsure how to address my domestic letters.

My neighborhood is Kita-ku, north Kaminakazato, started as a mystery, a strange address that might as well have been stationed in a shroud of clouds.

After six years, it is still mystery, but mine. It is every window, every doorframe.

Each celebration the pride of a temple. It is where I become a mom and brought home my two little birds.

It is dog walks and where to land the best pastry.

It is all of us growing right here, in these ways.