The weather has settled down here towards autumn and it has become pleasant, especially at night for walks. The temperature is almost perfect. The other day I took a night walk, then wrote this when I got back:
walking at night
the sky opens
above me[1]
夜道ゆく天のひらけて上にかな
yomichi yuku ten no hirakete ue ni kana[2]
Japan is a small country and the liveable land is even smaller, making cities tight and cramped. As a result, everything is smaller. Houses are smaller, roads and cares and parking spaces — all smaller. Pretty much everything is just smaller. Think New York City. Without the overwhelming number of people there (well, outside major cities like Tokyo anyway) but with the lack of space.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You get used to it, and the smaller scale of everything makes it more comfortable than not. But it is an undeniable fact, at least in most of the country. Hokkaido being a big exception.
But sometimes, when walking, when the night sky opens up and the stars come out, everything feels larger under that infinite sky. The cramped streets fall away. The stars push everything outward. For a moment the country that usually feels compressed becomes impossibly wide. That was something of how I felt as I was walking the other night. The above haiku hints at my awe a little more in the Japanese version than in the English one, with the kireji kana, which is something like a sigh of wonder or an exhale of awe.