fallie

Mount Fuji flower festival, Japan.

I took this picture as a reminder. To remind myself that I am not bound to one place. To remind myself that places like this exist, and waiting for me to come back. This was my first time visiting the stream after many years of going back to Nigeria. My mother told me stories of how she and her cousins used to bathe here. How this was the place she learnt to swim. How the water was so clear you could look right in and see your toes as if there was nothing surrounding it.

I heard it before I saw it. gasped when I did.

“What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another. You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.” — Sally Rooney