The Absence of Rain

Is now over. Until just a bit more than a week ago it rained and rained and rained like the sky wanted to drown us, but ever since the end of rainy season was announced all we’ve had for days was sun and heat. It was so nice and damn summery.

Today, for the first time since summer “officially” started we are having rain, and quite a heavy one from early morning. It’s been brought by the typhoon which can hit the country any time. It’s actually stopped now, but this morning the rain was so heavy that it almost stopped traffic and I had to sit in the commuting train for more than an hour whereas it usually takes only half an hour. I was fortunate, though, cuz I could get hold of a seat and get back my sleep ;-)

The good thing about rain this time is that it brings down the air temperature quite a bit. It’s true that it gets muggier but still. Oh, and as I was thinking, “all right, is it going to be hot again from tomorrow?” I just realized that today is technically the beginning day of autumn, Japanese calendar-wise. We have this calendar system which we apply the flow of time into year, month, week and day, and according to this system today is supposed to be the first day of the year when we can feel autumn in the air.

In reality, however, it turns out to be the hottest time of year with lingering summer heat. In fact, it’s not even “lingering”, it’s mid-summer. It would be super sad if summer is really over and all we have left is shorter and cooler days, cuz then it would mean that we only had a week of summer.

Oh, but I did see a dragonfly around last Sunday. I hear that dragonflies don’t have positive image or symbolism in the West. Anyway, Japanese people used to call dragonflies “akizu” in the old days and Japan itself was even called Akizushima meaning the island of dragonflies. That’s how dragonflies are close to our daily life. As it has in its name “aki”, the character for autumn, we do feel autumn in the air when we see dragonflies.

Feel summer in the buzzing of cicadas and feel autumn on the airy appearance of dragonflies – there’s nature left in Tokyo, good enough to feel the season. Not bad, huh?