That blizzard of blossoms returned to me again and again in dreams. The color of sakura, that pale red, became a symbol of something that blocked my way without reason. For years, I thought it was from the day I entered kindergarten in Ōfuna. I imagined that after the entrance ceremony, I had gone out with my aunt and uncle into the film studio grounds..
There had been a row of cherry trees just inside the main gate of the Ōfuna Studio. I was certain that was the place. The studio is gone now. I have no way to confirm it. I do not know if those trees still stand..
After my father died, my mother remained in Yokosuka, stunned and unable to move forward. My aunt took me in. Because of that, my earliest memories belong to Ōfuna, and most of them are tied to the studio..
My uncle worked there. Our house stood along the same row as the studio. Looking back, it feels as if everyone who worked there lived nearby. The older kids I played with were all children of studio workers. We slipped into the studio grounds and ran around. We were scolded if we caused trouble, but the vast open spaces absorbed us. Children running across them were part of the scenery. Sometimes, when we ran past, the men working there would call out to us and share bits of sweets from their breaks..
The one who paid us the most attention was the man who worked in the archive. I do not remember his name. We called him Gen-san..
“Gen-san’s been around since the Kamata days,” one of the older boys told me. I nodded as if impressed, though I had no idea what “Kamata” or “old-timer” meant..
When we were tired of playing, we would go to him. He was always blunt, never warm in manner, but when we showed up, he seemed pleased. He would give us drinks and snacks, then run leftover film reels for us..
Most of the footage was scenery. While it played, he would mutter explanations..
“Movies are a collection of small efforts by many people. Even the frames that don’t get used, none of them are wasted.”.
“Everything has meaning. Even if it wasn’t used, the meaning stays. That’s why I show them like this from time to time.”.
I do not remember hearing those words myself. I was too young. I learned of them later, from someone I happened to meet at the opening ceremony of Kamakura Cinema World. He had also grown up beside the studio and had been cared for by Gen-san..
We stood there, listening to speeches, watching the last breath of the Ōfuna Studio being turned into something else, and we talked endlessly about the place that had been our playground. Those stories were far more alive than the thinly constructed theme park around us. We exchanged business cards and promised to meet again. We never did..
Not long after, that place too collapsed. The studio vanished completely..
Some time later, while speaking with my mother, the conversation turned to my aunt in Ōfuna. In the middle of it, she said something unexpected..
“You didn’t attend the kindergarten entrance ceremony there.”
I was startled. At the same time, the storm of blossoms returned with absolute clarity.
After taking me in, my aunt and her husband had grown attached. They had wanted to adopt me.
“They said I couldn’t raise you,” my mother told me. “They said they would be better parents.”
My mother refused. On the day of enrollment, she came and took me back to Yokosuka. I cried, saying I wanted to go to kindergarten, as she pulled me along.
The hand I had held that day was not my aunt’s.
It was my mother’s.
“But in the end, it didn’t work,” she said. “I asked them to take you back. On the condition they would never bring up adoption again.”
To the child I was, my mother was a woman who visited from time to time. Home was Ōfuna. Even after I began living with her, I spent every school break with my aunt and uncle. My mother never objected, but something remained unresolved in her.
“When you waved and said, ‘Mama, come visit again,’ it was unbearable,” she said. “That’s when I decided we had to live together. Just the two of us.”
She did. She pushed forward. That effort left distortions. She carried more than she could manage. Part of that weight reached me. There was always a sense that I had to carry it as well. She did not say it directly, but it showed in fragments.
I resisted it. I thought it was her decision, her burden. From my late elementary years until the summer I left home in my final year of high school, that thought stayed with me.
“But,” she continued, “I wanted a child of my own. I wanted you to be born. After losing your father, I couldn’t bear losing you too. I know I caused you pain because of that.”
She smiled, old now, the years behind her.
“I wasn’t much of a son. Hardly home once I grew up.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “As long as you’re alive somewhere under this sky, that’s enough.”
She laughed.
More than eighty years. She had lived through upheaval and arrived here, in front of me. It felt as if she had given birth to me for this moment.
I saw the falling blossoms again.
They were no longer the sign of something that blocked my path.
They were flowers scattering in celebration, making way for what comes next.
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