The old and the new

On Sunday, Tetsu and I went off to church only to find that we were an hour early...  We chose to spend the time walking around the neighborhood visiting places we had memories of. 

And what is this rather dilapidated building?  This was the apartment that I lived in for about a year before Tetsu and I got married!  I think it was rather old when I moved in and 40 years hasn't helped it much...

"Is this really the place?"

Tetsu said he remembered the stairway...  I remember it looking out on the parking lot...

The apartment was a two tatami room place with its own kitchen and bath (some of the apartment in that era had shared bathroom spaces...).  I had moved here and commuted back and forth to the Christian center by bicycle which was a first for me.  Until then bicycles were for recreation, not for transportation!

Tetsu and I had been dating for over a year and he had already "proposed" a couple of times but I couldn't see myself living my life out in Japan... One winter night I returned to my apartment to find the water frozen in the pipes and being a Southern California girl had no idea what to do.  Tetsu who would stop by on his way home from work, left me inside the somewhat warmer apartment while he set to work thawing out the pipes and then wrapping them in towels to keep them from refreezing.  He must have worked an hour or two out in the cold and it was at that point that I realized how well taken care of I'd be if I married him.  A couple of days later I accepted his repeated proposal.

Looking at the apartment building's crumbling pipes, I wondered if any of the tape and toweling Tetsu had used might still be there.  It sure looked like it and I pointed it out to Tetsu.  He, by the way, does not remember the story of unfreezing my pipes at all.  So much for romantic ponderings.

We argued between us as to whether I lived in the second apartment or the third but finally agreed that it is the one that I'm pointing at.  No one seems to live there anymore...  Not many of the apartments seem to be lived it at all.

 We got back to church in time to chat with a few of the older members.  The church has been rebuilt since our time and it is now a beautiful place where once it had had a black wood burning stove in the center aisle and the pastor's wife would throw logs into it during the Sunday service.

Some things stay the same, some things change.