Perhaps if I will it, if I stop, breathe, and slow down, I can do it. I can rise above my panic.

If I focus, if I slow down, perhaps I can take myself there, on the footbridge outside Sendai Station, at night when the city is still.

If I focus. If I am patient.

If I still everything else. Take a half step away from Pittsburgh and from the news.

Breathe. Feel the tile beneath my tanker boots and the sound of traffic on Aoba Avenue.

Some local kids amble past, heading for the stairs down to Aoba Avenue, off to a show in Kokubuncho.

In ones and twos in the taxi pool beneath the foot bridge, the local taxis finish their business hours and drive out for the night.

If i am still, very still, and will myself there.

If I am still, very still, and take myself to where my heart remains.

Some of the lights wink off-- this is a city, yes, but it does sleep a little at night. The subway stops running after a certain hour, too.

The dimmed forms of buildings I remember well, fill my field of vision in all directions. My eyes linger on E-Beans and the Loft.

I can do it. I can be there.

If I am still, very still.

If I can will myself to where my heart remains.

If I slow down, and I listen.

One foot in front of the other, I start walking, down Aoba Avenue, past passing knots of late night bar patrons and through the shifting patterns of light and shadow, for this city does sleep, just a little.

Is it an instant, or an eternity, by the time I reach Omachi-Nishi?

At the crest of the hill, Sakuraoka Daijingu's shrine hall stands quiet vigil. Ahead lies Ohashi, the Great Bridge.

I descend the slow curve of Aoba Avenue, pass onto the bridge, and stop. Beneath my feet, the waters of the meandering Hirose murmur past in a dark curl.

I can see it, if I am still.

I can see it, if I will it.

If I step back from Pittsburgh, calm my heart, and breathe.

I can be where my heart still lingers.

Beneath my feet, the Hirose murmurs as if in reply. It wends and weaves its way south and east, past Kome-ga-fukuro and Otamayashita, on, on, on to the waiting arms of the mighty Natori, which carries its waters to the waiting Pacific at Yuriage.

To the south and west is the dark shape of Mount Aoba. High atop it, I know well, are the venerable walls of Aoba Castle. And even if I cannot see it, Date Masamune, immortalized in equestrian form, stands watch over the city whose essence he set into motion.

I walk on, on into the darkness, onto the Hirose's left bank at Kawauchi. The balance is different here. The blurs of light and shadow remain, but the shadow reigns here, in this place where the forest has reclaimed what was a castle.

My feet know it, even if my eyes have trouble in the dark. The streets are a patchwork of switchbacks and cul-de-sac here, some new and some very old. I have to work my way around the Tohoku University campus, but I know where I'm going..

Occasionally, cars whiz past. Route 48, the Sakunami Highway, runs through its tunnels around here, but where I'm walking, the most I get is the whiz of an occasional passing car.

I pull my jacket tighter against the cold, and as I did 15 years ago, let my feet lead the way.

Two and a half miles, and at last I've made it. In the quiet of a largely residential neighborhood, I stand under the three and a half century old stone torii.

This is Kameoka Hachiman Shrine, where my gods dwell in the sanctuary atop the wooded hill.

I stand, transfixed, and for the longest time, just...stop. I stop to listen. I stop to breathe. I hear my heart pounding in my ears. I hear distant traffic. I hear the wind through the trees.

I can see it, if I am still.

I can have it, if I calm my heart.

I can return, if I breathe, if I leave behind my panic.

I can be home again, where my heart still dwells.

I can be there, in the place I shall see again.

And the day will come when the night will pass, and I'll be there to greet the new dawn.

/thread