First I had lost track of time. What’s the time? In reality? Or in my body? I was in distress and it took me a good five days to join the local pattern again...
But once I was biologically synchronised, I soon realised that the change of scenery, the return from warm, shinny, exotic and intriguing Japan is harder than I expected. Despite a shy Welsh sunshine, it seems almost impossible to overcome the gloom of Swansea.
As I am walking down the street of this city, a strong sense of sickness is taken over my whole body. I cannot be there anymore. It is an oppressing feeling. I am disgusted by the smells, by the buildings, by the people. Nothing in this place makes me want to smile. Even the sea, the bay and the view over the Mumbles that for so long used to feel me with joy and stretch my mouth to a big smile, seem now to have lost their powers.
What happened? When did I start seeing things so differently? Well I don’t want to put any new comers off, because Swansea can still be a nice place to be if you like to drink and party and sleep all day to wake up in the evening and never see the colours of the city. When it comes to make a life... Swansea itself has rather little to offer.
I can’t help but close my eyes thinking of Japan and remember the warm and steamy smell in the air, remember the feeling of my perspiration running down my back... these big and warm drops. I loved their rayless sun and the constant mist in the skies because of the continuous steam evaporating from the seas around the island.
I have been in Swansea too long... I come from the sun and the warmth... I come from a place where the asphalt liquefies under the heat, where the grass transforms into hay in the count of a few weeks over the summers, where I can’t sleep at night because the city never cools down.
But is Japan really the reason why I feel so uncomfortable back here? Is the shock between this two completely opposite place the reason of my anxiety and restlessness?
No, it is because the dearest person to my heart has left Swansea... so, all of a sudden I wake up to the actual reality; I see with the eyes of the common people, I see Swansea for what it is.
