I was thinking about Narai today. It sprang to mind, unbidden, while I was driving somewhere else, and all day visions of the little streets and old buildings haunted me. Memories double-exposed over the place I was really in.
Like so many other places I've been to, and been back to, that little Nagano Prefecture town is caught up in memories. It's a place on the map that I pin things to: old dreams and experiences, the way I felt at the time, so that they don't vaporize and I can remember who I was then, and when I was there.
Tucked in the deep, green cut where the Kiso River finds its way between the Kiso and the Hida ranges, Narai was the 34th of 69 post stations on the Nakasendo Road, which formed a cross-country link from the Imperial capital of Kyoto to the political capital of Edo (present-day Tokyo) during the period when the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan (1603-1867).