Smelling of coconut body lotion and Old Spice deodorant, I get off the train at Shibuya Station. It's summer and hot. Too hot. I wish I were wearing a more visually layered and put-together outfit, but the heat makes any and all clothing an imposition, so I took the path of least resistance. This is not the first time I've been to Shibuya, and it certainly won't be the last, but my feelings for it have remained consistent even after a year and a half in the city. The warm air smells miraculously odorless, and I'm yet again struck with the feeling of being on a movie set, some contrived fantasy version of a major metropolis. When I think "city," I see and smell New York, which is markedly different from my notion of Tokyo. Not in a way that makes one better over the other (I love New York), but it sets them apart. It colors my understanding of what the word "city" means, making my experiences in Tokyo almost surreal, even though I know better than to assume any place is without its flaws. Tokyo certainly has flaws, but the way it makes me feel isn't one of them.
At twenty-nine, I no longer have the convictions of an early twenty-something, certain that all my experiences and feelings are wholly unique, one of a kind, never happened before. In a way, I think this is better. I like knowing that others have felt what I've felt, and will probably continue to feel the same sorts of things until the End. This has happened time and time and time and time again.
I remember when my notion of Shibuya began, seeing a screenshot of a scan of a street snap (a real Xerox of a Xerox situation) of a gyaru from the 90s. I remember thinking she was the coolest girl I'd ever seen. I wasn't sure if she was a Tokyo native, but to me, the persona of the young woman in that photo was conceived and raised in Shibuya. What's strange is that, despite experiencing nostalgia for a time, a girlhood, and a culture that was never mine, I was not disappointed when faced with the reality. The Shibuya of the 2020s is a virtually different ward than it was in the photo, but I guess that doesn't matter. And all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, it still feels like the kind of place where a gyaru could be born.
I open myself to that metaphorical birth each and every time I take to Center-Gai. For good measure, I say a little prayer to the advertisements (read: iconographies) of Shohei Ohtani that gaze down at me from Above. I'm a lapsed catholic, but Ohtani feels more tangible and omnipresent in Japan than my former God or any of the Kami-sama one could ostensibly pray to at a local shrine.
Are you there, Shohei? It's me, Lexie.
There's something about Tokyo, Shibuya in particular, that makes me feel like I could do anything. It makes the idea of being a woman alone in the city a romantic and wholly doable challenge. That is, until I get sick, and then I'm wrapped in Daiso blankets thinking there must not be a girl in the world as lonely and wretched as me. But this passes. All things do.
I can't help but wonder if my love for Tokyo will pass, too. And I do love Tokyo in a very real and "alive" way. I find myself reminded of this love at the most random occasions. Even when I'm feeling depressed or like an incorrigible idiot, I'll be walking down a crooked side alley at twilight or waiting to pick up my anti-depressants at the pharmacy, and I'll look around and think, "I love it here. I really do." Even when nothing is happening, I have the sense that something just might.
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