Once, after the wet, green month of June — which every year waters the newly planted rice, turns the landscape lush, and makes us long for sunlight and clear skies — my boyfriend and I drove all night just to swim in the ocean.
At the time, we shared a single day off each week, and long weekends offered us rare overlapping holidays. We left in the dead of night: a couple of hours sleep after our evening classes, and drove the dark, nearly-deserted roads from Nagano down towards the coast.
I spent much of my childhood by the sea, and though I love it where I live in the landlocked, mountainous heart of this country, in summer I long for buoyant, briny waters, for blue waves. Every year when the heat warps the landscape, humidity lofting the hills high into the hazy summer sky, I feel the pull of the ocean, tidal, drawing me to the coast.