I am learning the seasons—mid-December in Tokyo means massive carpets of golden leaves and vivid blue skies.

This is Yokoami-cho Koen Park, in an older part of the city.  While it seems lovely, just to the right of the photograph you can see some burned metal—debris from the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake on display…things like melted masses of nails and the chassis of a car.  The park also has a large Buddhist temple where thousands of victims of the disaster are buried, as well as another memorial to the victims of the firebombing of Tokyo during World War II.  Inside the museum are artifacts and photographs from both disasters—burned watches with the hands stopped at 11:58 AM, when the earthquake struck, lots of black and white photographs of familiar-looking streets with tipped over buildings and anxious men in boater hats and dark smoke from fires in the distance.  Upstairs were artifacts from the war years—with a mild sense of guilt, I noticed we were the only foreigners there.  I get the impression this place is slowly forgotten as history gives away to newer, more resonant disasters.  I felt sorrow for a generation of people who watched their city get destroyed in a natural disaster and then twenty years later, watched it happen again from war. 

We, as a species, don’t need any more wars as nature has its own way of making life miserable…I passed a newer display of photographs from the 11 March earthquake on my way out feeling overwhelmed by my own memories of the event and just how much it has changed life for everyone affected by it.

Emerging into the plaza with the golden trees and their vibrant showers of leaves and the dazzling blue sky with children scampering on the playground, I felt slightly better.  The past, of course, cannot be changed…and while the future seems to be a blank slate, the reality of geology and human nature is profoundly weighty…the only thing we can control is our reaction and our response.