When I first watched the Mushishi series it was a dawn of spring probably back in 2013, and there was one of those tart burners with some lemon notes churning between the episodes. If you smell enough of those tart trays they’ll give you a headache – frankly any candle does. But there wasn’t any headache here.
The second season had a sentimental opening from Lucy Rose – you probably already know, but it was coupled with some nice still-water shots, reflective, nice callback-symbolism I suppose.
The Mushishi series certainly captures the same persisted theme of transience, conveyed with all the villages and people to fade by the next opening theme. It was episodic after all. Mostly. So it was, so one was: suspended in a moment probably shared by the lot of you too, whatever show written on your stub. An afternoon aimless virtual field trip.
To the left was an antiquated dresser drawer – oak and heavy to pull, folded pants toward the lower and paired socks on the thinner upper. Metal handles all scraped up. To the right was the door: this is preferable, depending on your level of paranoia, or just distaste in explaining anything on your computer screen. If you trace past the door and turned the thin room corner so came a standalone lamp with some twin bookshelves to follow. Holding things of siblings, holding things which all blend the same as trays of business cards.
It’s an ironic scene, is what I’m trying to get at. What’s so “fresh” about any of this, with all of the baggage and furniture found thirty years prior? I guess it’s a testament to scent: it dictates most scene categorizations. How you’ll know a place if I mention funnel cake. There’s nothing about this scene to “miss” since it can be easily replicated. You can do it today if you’re ambitious enough.
See, the most endearing aspect was, in that moment, an assertion of clarity: physical and mental. In that moment, citrus imbued, so the mind would – for a moment – drop all the prior existence. It would remove all the evidence of some prior living, bookshelves no longer existing. You were someone entirely new: a humble nothing.
This is probably why people travel about. Freshness is the worded cousin of novelty after all. What’s more novel than a whole new place? Still, there’s something magical about feeling fresh in the same place, same moment in time, squeaky clean mind.
Maybe if we douse ourselves in enough grapefruit to tangerine the magic unveils itself once more. Maybe all that’s needed is another lemon-scent tart churning in this background, to where writing and reading this would be all fresh too.
Nevertheless, it’s something to crave when you’re able to pick it out. It’s not so obvious, depending on the scene: having to swat away the adrenaline to find the real source of levity. Instead of a cousin, maybe it’s the godfather: without a freshness what use is novelty? You can’t become a nothing during a first-time mugging.
I just want to turn the page. But I’m not sure how.