Official

For a period of time, I had many opportunities to visit Kanazawa City, Ishikawa Prefecture due to work.

In the past, when it was traveling to Kanazawa, it used to transfer airplanes and buses, but after the opening of the Hokuriku Shinkansen, the Shinkansen became the main, and if you get on the first train from Tokyo, you will meet in Kanazawa from around 9:30 (it will be in time), and the business trip to Kanazawa will be completed almost on a day trip. Kanazawa also felt that it became one of the cities where you can do business efficiently, not a place where you can move while feeling the travel feeling, and in exchange for the convenience of the movement itself, I felt like a little something was lost. Was.

On the Hokuriku Shinkansen, the in-vehicle magazine "Tranver" was placed on each seat, and there was also a serialization of the essay "Tabi no Tsubakuro" by Kotaro Sawaki (author of the immortal masterpiece "Midnight Limited Express"). I read every time I got on the Shinkansen, and one day's essay was impressive.

It was almost like this.

"(Mr. Sawaki) had been working part-time at a department store in Nihonbashi for four years during the busy season. At the sales floor, customers such as the family of big politicians and the presidents of large companies take the clerk in charge and shop with their fingers. The customer does not bring what he bought back home, but the clerk in charge sends it by taxi. When you go up to the delivery, you know that there is a difference in how part-time students interact with "upstream class". One summer, the son of the "upstream class", who is also the customer, suddenly entered the same part-time job and had a contact point, but on the last day of the part-time job, he said, "Would you like to go to Karuizawa's villa together?" (Mr. Sawaki) I will refuse because I had a plan while worrying. He was "at another opportunity," but there was no "another opportunity." It was only that season that he came to work part-time. ”

"After years, when Mr. Sawaki got off to Karuizawa, I was wrapped in a mysterious feeling in a quiet villa in Karuizawa. The villa that he once invited must be connected to this place. If I had been invited by him at that time ... if I had stepped deeply into the world, there might have been another life that might have been. If I was on the invitation, I wouldn't have been able to hold the world I have now."

It was like that.

Why was this essay impressive to me?

Shortly before I read this essay, I returned to Tokyo after working in Osaka for about five years, and one day, when I stood in front of the statue of the heavenly woman at the Mitsukoshi Main Store in Nihonbashi, I felt that the pipe organ played an elegant sound and the majestic atmosphere finally increased. At that time, I was wrapped in a mysterious sense from the sound and space, and I felt here that "Oh, I have returned to Tokyo (Chuo-ku)". It had been a few days since I had already returned to Tokyo, but here I was filled with the feeling that I was "returned."

Having been transferred to another city, I felt that a special place with a slightly stretched back was valuable, and I came to be aware of it by linking it to Tokyo. Also, wasn't the transfer due to a sudden chance (incidental thing) walking on the side of "another life that might have been possible" (as mentioned in Mr. Sawaki's essay)? I was caught by the thought.

(It goes without saying that the stage in the essay happened to be the same department store in Nihonbashi, which also led to an impressive impression.)

Yesterday (February 23), I stood in front of the statue of a heavenly woman in Nihonbashi Mitsukoshi and remembered that. Now I'm no longer wrapped in a mysterious feeling.
But I feel that the feeling that it is a special place is rather stronger.