10.13.23 // Fushimi Inari - 2023 and 2020
Fushimi Inari - 2023 and 2020.
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When you travel, you leave home as one person and come back another. Versions of yourself are left all over the globe, sometimes they are left in the sand in Mexico, left in a book in Rome, or left on a mountaintop in Japan.
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It's impossible to come back as the exact same person when you've experienced a new horizon. But, what about returning to a place you once traveled to and go back to again?
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It is a surreal experience to know a place and then experience it again with eyes from a different version of you. There are mmemories lingering in the nooks of those places - the buildings are the same and the stories beg to be told, but the experience is different.
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Fushimi Inari in 2020 was a whirlwind. It was a "must" do on the way to Tokyo after spending a full day trail running on the Kumano Kodo (20+ miles, elevation, and jetlag body soreness). It was pouring rain and even though the entrance of the shrine was packed, the mountain paths emptied of tourists towards the top of Mount Inari.
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While the paths were clearly marked, I was lost. You can see it in my eyes in the photos from that day. You can see it in my smile. I was exploring a new horizon, but I had barely begun to explore the ones inside me, the depths of my own being, I was desperately looking to the world to tell me who I was...
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Fushimi Inari in 2023 was intentional. It was a spiritual place I ached to go back to. I had several days to spend in Kyoto and there was no rush, just intention and calm flow. It was warm and humid, and the tourists wound their way through most of the shrine. The weather was different than my first experience. I was also different.
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I moved slowly at the top of Mount Inari, listening to the rustle of the leaves over the vermilion torii gates. I felt the wind in my heart, I let tears well in my eyes at a loving shared experience. I was still "lost" in many respects of my life, but I had found myself. I stood on the mountaintop and knew my horizons, I knew who I was even if sometimes I didn't know where I was going.
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The same place, but vastly different experiences. The same face, but vastly different versions.
