So much has happened here in Yamashiro this year, and yet, as with every year, there’s this lingering feeling that nothing has happened at all—that the year has passed so quickly, last year’s celebrations feel no further away than just a few months.

Once, this feeling left me with a touch of melancholy, as if I were afraid that time was slipping by too fast for me to keep up. But now, I no longer think that way. I see the beauty in a rhythm of time marked by the ever-returning seasons—universal and unchanging—while individual, ephemeral lives constantly change.

And so, reflecting on the uniqueness of every event and of every person I recall as I look back on this past year, their uniqueness grows ever brighter, and their value ever more precious.