More than once I've traveled these streets; speechless from the lack of sound, the peaceful passing of energy through the air. How can a city be simultaneously more miniature and massive than any other... shrunken cars, curated clippings of nature's best, cultivated over hundreds of years, each stone in a suburban shrine brought by hand from the porous cliffs of Mt Fuji. The patchwork weaving of ribbon-like roads and evergreen groves, cubic concrete and shimmering neon, all packed like fibers in an endless rug. There's tension here and inside of me between an old woman folding origami in her wheelchair and a teenager texting vigorously in a packed yet silent train with glittered eyes artificially made large like anime. I return to LA after navigating countless miles of snowy mountain roads on the opposite side in every sense, west of forever and suspended in space. The tension returns; fitting in and forming things for myself, giving weight to perspective and following through with intuitive motions of risk-taking bravado. I will always long for those cinematic bursts of perfect snow falling from the peaks as I dissolve in sulfuric springs, the water and I both spawned like inspiration from the core of our planet. Miyazaki melodies–powerful as they are–are no match for the memories made in these mountains.
