Mari, one of my students, pointed out that summer was the season of love, and sure enough, when I went for a walk in the park the other afternoon, I saw a couple of high school students necking on the freshly-cut grass. The high school students are on their summer break right now, but because of their club activities, they still often wear their school uniforms. The boy was sitting cross-legged on a slight slope, and the girl was lying with her head in his lap, and he was leaning down to kiss her, oblivious to everything else. The cicadas were singing their desperate whining song in the trees; the song changes in pitch as the summer passes, until soon the cicadas will die and the song will end for another year.

Mari also told me about the rabbit art in front of the art museum, where she works as a guide. There is a long line of slightly larger than life-size bronze rabbit sculptures, maybe about twelve or so, in various poses of running, until at the front, the first rabbit is rising on his hind legs, looking up at the sky. Anyway, a superstition has popped up that if you pray to the second rabbit – the one running with his legs bunched up under him – and offer some shijimi clam shells, you will find your true love. I have noticed that the ground around that second rabbit is worn and trampled, and Mari joked that the rabbit was working too hard and needed a break!

That reminds me of a Japanese children’s song that my classmate Nobi taught me when we were going to the National Theatre School together, a long, long time ago. Seiji knew it when I sang it for him, and told me what the words meant. The song goes, “Usagi, usagi, nani mite haneru? Ju goya o-tsuki-sama mite haneru.” Roughly translated, it goes, “Rabbit, rabbit, what is making you leap around so much? It’s the moon that makes me leap around so much.” I also sang it with Sakamoto-san one moonlit night during the theatre festival. She felt ‘natsukashii’, or nostalgic, when she heard it. ‘Natsukashi’ literally means something like ‘summer memories.’

The summer heat is beginning to pass, but Obon was scorching hot. I got a kick out of watching the businessmen and the university students – especially the boys! – fanning themselves lazily with delicate fans decorated with flowers and rabbits. I slept with my towelket, a cross between a blanket and a towel made of terrycloth. I didn’t sleep with the air conditioner on, as many people do, though. I slept with my head close to the screen door on my balcony, listening to the birds and insects by the river. Sometimes I would hear Aki and Junko coming home next door late in the evening. He’s a DJ, and they’re both night owls. They both have very distinctive voices; his is deep and purring, like a cat, and she has an infectious throaty laugh.

To protect themselves from the sun, most women cover up, of course, with long gloves, sun parasols, hats and powerful sunscreen. I use “Sunkiller Perfect Strong 50,” and it has successfully prevented me from burning on those hot days at the beach. I went to the beach a lot this summer, but I didn’t swim as much because I went in the evening for barbecues a lot, and very little could induce me into inky black water. I wish I had swum more.

I had a great birthday party on Friday night, a few days early. We sang karaoke at Kaya from 9 to 2! I sang a lot, and really enjoyed myself. ‘The gang’ (Yumi, Martin, Reiko and Cody) came, and Ryoko came with Keiko and Reiko (an ex-student at AEON, who recently opened her own café; I want to go there soon. It’s called Koji, which is a Japanese name, but Reiko wanted it to sound like “cozy” too). Bud was there early, but went out on the prowl. Now that he’s living in the city, he’s living it up and trying to score like crazy (note I say “trying”). Stephen came, and even sang a few songs, although he’s usually a little shy of the karaoke machine. And the latecomers were Aki and Junko, then Cleve, after he had closed Argo. I was overwhelmed by the gift everyone chipped in to get me – an electronic Japanese-English dictionary! These are amazing little gizmos that most Japanese students of English carry. The lack of English instructions is a slight problem, but I’m learning as I go, by asking a lot of questions. Yumi, Martin and Cody also made me a lovely photo album of our adventures in the last year (though the boys acknowledged that Yumi did most of the work) and gave me a ticket to a Canadian play that’s coming here in September. Finally, of course, there was cake – a soft sponge cake with vanilla icing, covered with fruit and chocolate. Yum!

I got another cake on Saturday, when I went to Argo. Jennifer made a vegan chocolate cake that was just delicious. Aki was DJing, and a lot of the new ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) from the JET Program came to dance and unwind after their week of training. They all seem REALLY young – not like the veterans, who have been here two years or more. Because they have just spent the last week together, learning survival Japanese and practicing teaching, they are a little insular, so it’s hard to get to know them. But I think with time, they’ll open up a little more. And there’s a Nova Scotian girl among them, a vivacious, outgoing girl named Tiffany from New Ross. I think she has Julia’s old school. Meeting all these new people was exhausting, and I almost left before the birthday cake!

On Monday night, I went to the art museum because a group of people had gathered on the shore of the lake. Irish Adam was there with his guitar and a new ALT had her fiddle, and they were playing Irish reels and jigs. Nice. It was humid, but there was a strong breeze blowing off the water and the lake was white-capped and restless. Martin, Cody and Yumi had come, and Martin had brought his new girlfriend, Yuri, so there was a little tension in the air. It was the first time Yumi had met Yuri, and Yuri was very quiet. It was kind of like watching two cats put into the same room for the first time. But the music was soothing, and the evening was peaceful, and we had a nice time. Yumi left early; I know she’s hurting, but she’ll get through it. The night before, she invited me over for dinner, and we had pasta and my faux Greek salad (it’s hard to find feta in Matsue) and some wine. She needed to talk, so I let her go. Then we watched “It Happened One Night,” which was my pick. It was the oldest movie Yumi had ever seen, and I’m not sure if she liked it. It’s a charming little screwball romantic comedy from 1934, directed by Frank Kapra and starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. Then we watched “Sense and Sensibility”, which I had never seen. It was lovely, and left me aching for a little romance in my life. I’m a fan of Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, and I thought Alan Rickman was lovely, though occasionally when he lowered his voice dramatically, I thought of Severus Snape from the Harry Potter movies.

I went back to work on my birthday, but after work I stopped at Argo. Yumi and Reiko joined me, and while we were talking, we got great news – Kei and Yukiko had had their baby, exactly on the day their doctor had predicted. Reiko looked at her phone and shrieked with delight, and we joined her when we saw the squashed, tiny face of the newborn girl, who nonetheless looked exactly like her mother (Kei said later that the moment she was born, she looked like him, but five minutes later, she looked like Yukiko). Her name is Hibiki, which means ‘echo’. What a lovely birthday present for me, although I don’t get to keep her.