はるばるの手紙だ! – Letters From Afar!

This recent holiday season I decided to be an adult and send Christmas cards to friends and family.  I recycled spoilage that I had siphoned way back during my print shop days and stashed in my room, only to be unearthed some 8 years later.  There are a whole lot more of them remaining, so perhaps you too can look forward to one of these lovely cat hate crime cards in 2015.

Now that I’ve got myself a real address, I’ve been fortunate enough find a few notes in my letterbox as well.  Old fashioned as it may be, there is no modern day replacement for that satisfaction felt for getting something personal in the mail.  I appreciate everything that comes in of course, but perhaps the most exciting were those that came in from students and friends in Japan.  Perhaps because it furthered the illusion that I still mattered to people over there…  This first set came from the Nakai family, my awesome landlords of three years, along with letters from their daughters and a picture taken on a recent trip.

The other two letters to come in from Japan were crafted by the students of Kaminishi Elementary School.  These remaining four (yes, four) students, just finished their final semester in that mountain school before it was officially closed down.  While the opportunity to play and learn among all of Shionoe’s other kids is great for them, it does feel like the end of an era – teaching at that school was just so refreshingly different than the others.  There were lots of good feels from being remembered by them despite being well over a year returned from Japan.  First were the two younger students.

There were a bunch of pictures showcasing some of the recent student endeavors enclosed, but one of my favorites was this group shot, featuring all members of the school staff and student body too.  They were just in the planning stages of that mosaic when I left.  I got to know all of these people pretty well.

The two older students slipped in a bit of English, which I suppose brought some merit to my time spent there.  One of my 2015 goals is to write a letter each week, and I’m sure that I’ll be crafting them responses in the coming months.