Page 108

She stopped before the bridge, knowing that once she crossed she wouldn't, couldn't look back. She promised herself that she wouldn't look back. But promises are meant to be broken after all and she could feel this one crumbling like her own heart. It ached for one last view of her home. Well, home for the past year, but home none the less. After all, home is where your family is and they were all like family by now. All the people she met, liked, loved, and even hated. All of them family. Like Brothers, Sisters, Long-Lost Cousins, Step-Siblings. So she stopped and placed her suitcases on the ground, slowly-as if to stall the inevitable-and reluctantly-giving into the desires she tried to restrain. Taking a deep breath and steeling her nerves, she turned. She could feel the tears starting to form in her eyes but she continued to hold them there as not to allow them to stream down her face. Held them as tight as she would forever hold onto the memories that caused them. She refused to let sadness take her tears. Unlike what happened just outside the dorm. And then again several feet from the entrance. And again just a couple of stops after that. She needed to sprint the last ten meters just to stop herself from turning back between there and here. But stopping here was important. It was, after all, the last place where she would be able to get a glimpse of the place she called home for the last year. She could see the boring brown structure, equally boring as the building next door and probably built by the same unimaginative builder. So she stands, staring and reflectiing and ignoring all the people squeezing passed her and her two jumbo suitcases that currently block the bridge like a traffic accident on a two lane road. A bridge, how appropriate. She was going back to reality, but crossing as a new person. Wiser, experienced, hopeful, and all those other good things a year abroad brings. And a setting sun-for the end of this journey-or should it be the start of a new one? But now we're getting too sentimental so let's leave it at that. But it is a perfect moment. She digs through her backpack and pulls out her treasure. Or is it more appropriate to call it her sword? Like a sword it does take the souls of its victims. Maybe more appropriately, its like a sword because though equally treasured and valuable it cannot, could not ever compare to the riches it has helped her take and capture-memories. So she aims through the lens of her camera and with a click, captures her last memory of Japan and with it seals away all the memories from just one of her many adventures, but one that she will hold onto forever. Again she picks up her suitcases and walks across the bridge, back to the world she knew just a year ago-back home. And again she stops and turns back

*note: picture taken from page 108 from Allison O'Connor's photobook "24:00 Japan in Film Photography". You can also check out more pictures on her blog- 24:00 http://urbanresearch.wordpress.com/

i seem to find pictures more helpful to get over writer's block than just staring at a blank sheet of paper. no idea why