I arrived with a language I thought I knew – images, gestures, borrowed words. But Japan spoke in pauses. In shadows. In things that did not ask to be understood.
I was lost in train stations where time moved perfectly without me. Lost in conversations that ended with smiles instead of explanations. Lost in streets where signs were clear, yet meaning slipped quietly past.
Clothes became my sentences. Layers replaced vocabulary. Silhouettes said what my mouth could not.
I learned that being lost was not an error here – it was an invitation. To observe without interruption. To feel without naming. To love without translating.
In the quiet between arrivals and departures, I stopped trying to belong. And that is when the country let me stay.
Japan did not ask me to understand it. It asked me to look. To walk slower. To listen to what cannot be spoken.
I left still lost. But carrying a language made of reverence, restraint, and awe. A love that exists precisely because it cannot be fully translated.
