Catch the Moment

Mariia Lytvynchuk

Indeed, human life is ephemeral, 
like dew, and fleeting, like lightning. 
— Ryūnosuke Akutagawa 

What happened in Tokyo will remain in Tokyo forever. There is no way to turn it back, no way to recreate that sun-filled time when the days were bright and the songs of cicadas filled the air. And yet, there is still one way to live it again: to remember the voices of dear friends, to breathe in the scent of freshly cooked rice, to recall the taste of bitter tears and mirthful laughter, the feeling of surprise and quiet happiness. That way is writing. 

This story is not a guidebook to Japan. You can find those anywhere. The internet is full of detailed accounts of the country’s culture and history, its people, and the experience of communicating with them. And there is, of course, much to say—after all, Japan is a unique place, marked by a deep sense of authenticity. But this story is not even a personal essay about life in Japan. No. It is about something else entirely. It is about those rare moments when it becomes essential to release regrets

about the past and anxieties about the future, to pause, to truly notice the present, and to immerse yourself in it fully, learning to cherish the moment itself. That moment, for me, was my trip to Japan. But did I truly learn how to be present? In this brief reflection on the value of the moment, I trace five stages I had to journey through—each of them shaping, in its own way, the understanding I ultimately reached. 

The First Glimmer 

A person uninitiated, far removed from Asian culture, someone who has never been to Japan, can hardly imagine what the true sensation of arriving in this country for the first time feels like. They cannot anticipate how thrilling it is, how completely it disorients you. 

It was a hot day. Cicadas sang just inches from the wheels of my suitcase. At least half an hour had passed since I stepped out of  Mukogaoka-Yuen station in Kanagawa Prefecture, not far from Tokyo. Although we arrived around noon, a long and tedious debate at the airport over whether we should ship our suitcases directly to our destination resulted in my sister and me dragging four suitcases uphill at a nearly twenty-degree incline by early evening, with no idea when we would finally arrive. Sweat rolled in small beads from our foreheads down to our collarbones, then soaked into our already damp shirts in thin streams. It was mid-September. The sun was already nearing the horizon, yet the humidity turned the air into an unbearable steam bath. Moving slowly, hauling nearly forty kilograms behind me, I found myself instinctively observing everything around me. And I can say that, despite the exhaustion, it was worth it. Our campus was located in the city of Kawasaki, very different from the noisy chaos of Tokyo. Yet it was here that I immediately felt the spirit of the real Japan I knew from the works of Osamu Dazai. Along a rather narrow street, no more than two meters wide, people passed by constantly. A small boy, about five years old, was walking home from school. He wore a funny round yellow hat, a black-and-white uniform, and carried a bug net in his hand. He wore a funny round yellow hat, a black-and-white uniform, and carried a bug net in his hand (apparently, they had been catching cicadas at school that day). Behind him came another child, older this time, riding a bicycle. He cheerfully shouted something to his mother in Japanese, who followed close behind, responding just as cheerfully. Then I heard another Japanese phrase, but this one was addressed to me. A grandmother, a head shorter than I was, her hands clasped behind her back, said something with a smile, glancing at my suitcases. Although I had been studying Japanese for about two months by then, I did not understand a single word. All these people, and many others, passed me by, some forward, some back, along this small street that was so familiar to them and yet so foreign to me. 

On the left side of the endless road ran railway tracks, fenced off by a long wire barrier. On the right stood three-story houses, almost glued to one another. On the ground floors of some of them were small shops. One in particular caught my eye, a shop hand-painted with skateboards. It stood out sharply against the uniform white and gray of the surrounding buildings. Bright, vivid colors and ambiguous designs harmonized with the sky, which in a matter of seconds transformed into a variegated landscape, as if an artist had mixed every warm shade on their palette. Amber blended with morganite, and together they began to glow. Burning softly, they dissolved into the sky, illuminating clouds of bizarre shapes stretching all the way to the horizon, partially hidden behind trees in the background of the scene. That beautiful moment existed outside my reality. As if it were not my eyes that had captured it, but someone else’s. As if it were merely an image. And yet it took only a fraction of a second to return to reality. 

The rails roared. A high-speed train rushed in from the east. I did not even have time to turn before it had already crossed my field of vision and sped off toward the sunset. At the same moment, three teenagers raced downhill on bicycles. Without slowing down, they laughed and shouted to one another, their voices competing with the fading sound of the train. Before I could blink, the noise had completely vanished, and at a small intersection the students shouted “See you!” to each other and, without losing speed, disappeared down different sides of the narrow alley. 

Guilt 

In the three-story international house located across from the Kanda campus, we were supposed to live for three full months while studying at Senshu University through a special program for international students. However, as it later turned out, despite being called “international,” the house was not occupied solely by foreign students. There were only eleven of us in the end. The rest were Japanese students, roughly the same number. 

When I arrived, I could not have imagined that all twenty-two of these people would become close friends to me. That this place would soon become my home, where languages from different countries would be spoken, where the air would be filled every day with the smell of delicious Asian food, where I would be taught for the first time how to cook real Japanese curry and 肉じゃが(nikujyaga), and how to express gratitude before meals. I could not have known that from the very first day, from the very first minute, the international house would become the first place to introduce me to the subtleties of Japanese culture. 

But imagine this now. The wheels of our suitcases, which had already rolled across almost every continent in the world, were now being carefully washed with a cloth by Japanese students who met us at the dormitory. Japanese! They also asked us to take off our shoes, place our sneakers into a special storage box for outdoor footwear, and then change into guest slippers, dozens of which lay in a basket at the entrance to the main hall. When we entered, it turned out to be far larger than a simple entryway. The space was divided into two parts, a common hall and a kitchen. Several tables stood in the hall. Around them, we would constantly gather with friends, study together, play cards, share our most personal thoughts after late-night beer runs to Seven-Eleven, simply eat, rewatch Disney cartoons in Japanese, and cry. In the kitchen, all the Japanese students would soon gather and watch us with amazement as my sister and I cooked rice in a saucepan. 

“There’s a rice cooker!” they would say. 

But that would come later. 

For now, after finally reaching my room and feeling the soft surface of the bed beneath me, fully sensing the immense exhaustion in every cell of my body, I could not think of anything except those three teenagers on bicycles and the departing train. It was surprising how such a fleeting moment could leave such a deep impression on my nature. Especially since, in the days leading up to this, I had been thinking about only one thing: the future. 

The future. A frightening word.  

The moment I thought of it, the cyclists instantly evaporated from my mind. And then it hit me. After spending three days on the road, I had done absolutely nothing related to my “tasks for future” What those tasks does not matter. Everyone has their own. And yet thoughts of them weighed on me constantly. Every day, every minute, every second, I thought about what I would do after graduating from university (I was already a senior). The fear of the unknown consumed me. I did everything and nothing at the same time. My breath would catch, and because of anxiety and fear, I was almost completely paralyzed. That was why, before leaving for Japan, I promised myself, “In Japan, I will finally take care of these tasks.” 

But what happened at the welcome conference the next day completely destroyed my plans. 

“You will be studying almost every day from nine in the morning until seven in the evening,” they said. 

“Several times a week you will have cultural and business trips,” they said. 

“This is a very intensive program, but we believe you can handle it,” they said. 

All the students in the conference hall stared in shock. No one had expected this. The brochure stated that classes would run from nine to one, but in reality, that applied only to Japanese language lessons. I was seized by sharp panic. I had no idea how I would balance everything, how I would find time for all that I had planned. When I returned to my room, I immediately began drafting a detailed plan for the entire three months. Nothing good came of it. Stepping into the hall to at least get myself some water, I saw a group of international students gathered around the tables. 

“I’ll just hang my bedding on the roof, and then we can head out,” one of them said to his friend. Then, turning toward the stairs, he noticed me. 

“We’re going to an izakaya. Want to come with us?” 

I hesitated. I genuinely did not know what to answer. What I truly wanted. 

“I need to take care of some things,” I replied uncertainly. 

“What kind of things? Classes don’t even start until next week.” 

“There are… a few things.” 

He said nothing. And I simply returned to my room, instantly regretting my answer. 

I had always dreamed of Japan. I did everything possible to get to this country. But once I was here, I did not understand what I was supposed to do, what this trip was truly meant to give me, how exactly I would use what I learned, or why I had come at all. Was there any meaning in it? The surprising part was that the answers to all these questions lay on the surface. But that realization would come later. For now, I was overtaken by a sharp sense of guilt, dual and contradictory. Guilt from two sides, completely opposing one another. Guilt for trying to delight the moment. And guilt for being unable to delight it. 

An Attempt at Balance 

Whether it was a quiet response from the universe to my inner turmoil or merely a coincidence, just a few minutes after I had refused to go into the city, my sister walked into the room, excited and glowing, and said, “We’re going to an izakaya.” I could not refuse a second time.  

It is curious how, sometimes, the pressure of others can actually work in one’s favor. 

The izakaya astonished me. For the first time in my life, I saw a truly Japanese restaurant with low tables and glowing paper lanterns, where each person entering was greeted with a light smile and the words, “Welcome.” Once we settled at one of the tables, Ryo, one of the Japanese students who had come with us, ordered a wide assortment of Japanese snacks and drinks for everyone. We stayed there for no less than two hours, eating, drinking, and talking endlessly. 

“We have to go to the sea,” someone from the group said when the conversation turned to travel plans. I did not take part in that discussion. 

“Where? Kamakura?” 

“Yes! Kamakura!” 

“Kamakura? No, Enoshima is better.” 

“Enoshima? Where’s that?” 

“It’s right there, Kamakura. It’s basically the same thing.” 

“No, it’s not the same.” 

“Ryo, are you going to Kamakura with us?” 

“To Enoshima.” 

“Mm…  I am.” 

I wanted to go too. 

We walked back along the same slope I had recently climbed with my suitcases, but this time it was no longer daytime, but late at night. And I was no longer surrounded only by my sister, but by others as well. The thoughts that had weighed on me just a few hours earlier now reached me only as faint echoes somewhere in the cortex of my subconscious. A light breeze brushed against my skin, lifting and releasing the branches of the trees that had grown around the torii gate. These Japanese gates had drawn me in from the very first moment I saw them. Beyond them stretched a long staircase leading to a small Shinto shrine. Schoolchildren went there to pray for good exam results, parents for the health of their children, couples so that their love might last forever. If I had been given the chance, that night I would have prayed for the evening never to end. 

It truly was a good evening. A genuinely good one. I laughed a lot. 

And yet, the very next day, I went to the shrine to pray for something that, at that moment, I did not need at all. 

Acceptance 

The first week of classes began. It was a whirlwind time, yet still oddly pleasant. Among people, though never entirely, it became easier for me to dissolve into the present. We attended classes together, shared our meals, and completed our assignments side by side. Yet the instant my pencil traced the final hieroglyph, the others were already laughing in the hallways or preparing to leave for the city, while I withdrew to my room and sank into my concerns. They appeared necessary, even urgent, yet in truth they merely consumed my already fleeting moment. I spent the first weekend entirely on things I would later call pointless. I barely saw daylight. Our room was on the first floor, and the windows were tinted for the sake of privacy, which that day turned into isolation. Only closer to evening did I realize that I had eaten nothing all day except a melon bun in the morning. I took out my list of Japanese words, assigned for Monday’s test (and test were a daily occurrence), and went to the kitchen to prepare fried rice. At the neighboring counter stood Ayano, already cooking. She was one of the Japanese students living with us, and the person who would soon become the closest to me in that house.  

“Are you studying vocabulary for a test?” she asked. 

“Yes,” I replied, and began hurriedly chopping vegetables, driven by the desire to return to my room as soon as possible.  

When my rice was nearly finished, Ayano was still slicing carrots with deliberate precision. Each movement was unhurried, each piece identical to the last. She hummed softly, a faint smile resting on her face  

“Don’t you have homework for Monday?” I finally asked. 

“Oh no, I have a lot of it,” she replied calmly. 

“Then why are you doing everything so slowly? It feels like you’re not in a hurry at all.” 

“I’m just enjoying the moment.” 

I fell silent. It was inconceivable to me how one could live so unburdened by the imminence of what lies ahead, how one could avoid the weight of anxious anticipation when it stands just behind you, waiting, as death waits for the condemned. Yet I later understood that Ayano did not possess these anxieties at all. She did not reduce the present to a mere instrument for something else. She acted for her present self alone. She thought of lessons during lessons, of assignments while completing them, of cooking while cooking. Of vivid colors while watching fireworks. Of me while she was with me. She surrendered herself entirely to the present, accepting it and drawing quiet contentment from what life offered her. 

I turned toward the window. The sun was already descending. Leaving the food and the list of Japanese words behind, I went up to the roof.  

Fresh air filled my lungs. Before me unfolded a sunset far more resplendent than the one I had witnessed upon my arrival in Japan. There were no plans, no anxieties, no obligations. Only air, light, and wind. Oh, how I wished I could return to that moment! To that truly conscious instant! A moment when, for the first time in a long while, I dissolved into the present without any hidden thought. The worries of the outside world became distant, and the world itself narrowed to the sky, which captured me and carried me into something that felt almost unreal. And then I understood. The present is not something you are required to complete, but something you are able to live through. It was in that moment that I truly comprehended the beauty of Japan. 

Life is short and fast, and sometimes the only way to prolong it is to learn how to catch moments of the present and hold onto them, at least within your own consciousness. Otherwise, what is there left to live for? 

Delight  

“How much longer to Kamakura?” I whisper to Ryo. 
The train car is quiet. Only the quick rhythm of the wheels against the rails slips in through the window. 

“About twenty more minutes. We’ll walk around a bit there, and then it’s another twenty minutes to Enoshima,” Ryo answers just as softly. 

“We’ve already been riding for an hour and a half!” a sudden loud voice bursts out — a guy from Los Angeles standing in front of us draws the attention of nearby passengers. “This trip to Kamakura is so long!” 

“Quiet,” I say, pointing to the sign behind him. In large English letters it reads: Do not talk on the train. 

He rolls his eyes, but still falls silent until we reach the station. 

“Oh, the smell of the sea! Or is this the ocean?” the guy from Texas asks excitedly. 
“The ocean, I think,” the girl from Ireland replies. 
“Oh! Let’s go to the railway crossing!” a student from Canada adds. “That place 

from Slam Dunk!” 
“You’re right! Let’s go!” 

As soon as we leave the station, the railway crossing opens up before us — the very one he was talking about. The tracks. The lowered barrier. A green train passes by. And beyond it, the distant sea. Sunlight shimmers on the waves, as if white gold has been poured across the water. 

“Whoa. It really looks like the anime.” 
“Told you.” 
“Let’s take a group selfie,” Ryo suggests. 

The camera clicks. The photo turns out beautiful. 

The Japanese really do know how to value the present moment. 

“So — the beach?” 
“Let’s go.” 

The guys find some long, strange branches and start striking ridiculous poses, parodying characters from some movie or cartoon . I’m not entirely sure which. 
            “Don’t you have anything better to do?” I laugh, saying it to one from Texas. 
             “I am a conqueror of the seas!” 
             “Of course you are.” 

Ryo keeps filming us. He films us constantly. 

“Rei, what’s the plan next? Enoshima?” I ask. 
“Yes. In Enoshima we’ll go to a shrine, then a park, then eat at a seaside restaurant, and walk along the promenade. And we could try hanabi, if you want,” he says. 
           “Hanabi?” I ask again. 
           “Yeah. Handheld fireworks. Do you know what I mean?” 

How could I not know? Of course! Hanabi! Scenes flash before my eyes: The Summer Hikaru Died, Toradora, and other works of Japanese animation. Those small, glowing fireworks I had only ever seen in anime, never imagining that one day I would experience something like that in real life. 
         “Let’s go.” 

On the way to Enoshima, we buy hanabi. The guy from Texas carries them strapped to the back of his backpack all day while we move from place to place. Every stop opens something new for me — about Japan, and about myself. At a seaside restaurant, I discover Japanese seafood cuisine, tasting hirasu-don and tempura for the first time. At the shrine, I learn that each shrine in Japan has its own kinds of prayers. In the park, I see the “flower of death” from Tokyo Ghoul in real life for the first time. And on the promenade, I learn how seriously the Japanese treat accidents. 

The path to the rocks is blocked off with tape. Police officers stand nearby. A helicopter circles above the ocean. They are searching for someone — that much is clear. Maybe a tourist slipped and fell into the water. Or maybe it was someone trying to repeat Yozo’s path from No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. That happened in Kamakura, after all. But we are in Enoshima, so it doesn’t quite line up. Or maybe it was just someone who thinks Kamakura and Enoshima are the same place. 

About myself, I learn something simple: how deeply I love life. 

When it gets dark, we go to the beach. Ryo asks a group of unfamiliar girls for a lighter. The guy from Texas pulls dozens of handheld fireworks from the bags,  and then something magical begins. 

Dozens of fireworks of different colors flare up almost at once against the dark sky. Sparks fall into the sand. Behind us, the night ocean roars. A soft wind moves through our hair; the smell of smoke blends with the salt of the water. Laughter, sharp cries, and flashes of light fill the beach, and in that moment I realize: these three months will be unforgettable. 

I stop chasing meaning — 
and in this fleeting instant, 
life suddenly stands right beside me.