Living with the sea!

I just had the chance to run 10 km along the coastal boardwalk in Santa Monica, California, while enjoying the beautiful sunset. It happened to be cloudy and the sun wasn’t too strong, making it a perfect day for a run! There is nothing like the happiness of running along the beach while watching the sun set over the horizon of the Pacific Ocean.

Perhaps it’s because young employees these days have become too accustomed to a car-oriented society, but many of them dislike running on their own feet. They say they don't want to climb mountains or run half marathons, and I fear that we are seeing people who do not exercise at all. If this trend continues, we will not be able to extend our healthy age, and I can't help but think that many of our staff members will be forced to use a cane or get into a wheelchair as they get older. Why can't they see that taking care of their own bodies should be the most important thing they can do?

It is important to strengthen your legs and back. That is why I run every day. Therefore, I have recently been posting on social networking sites about mountain climbing, trail running, and "kikorikku," which means to cut down trees in the mountains. However, upon closer examination, I realize that it is not the mountains that have had the greatest impact on my life, but rather it’s the ocean. While I was gazing at the ocean, I started reflecting on the background of my own upbringing.

I was a city kid born in Shibuya, Tokyo, but it was the Showa period, and I remember that even Park Avenue in Shibuya still had many vacant lots and open fields. Although Tokyo was undergoing remarkable postwar reconstruction, my parents were poor and worked separately, so they were always away from home. I was the second son, so I was not given much attention, which probably contributed to my being a bit of a brat. In the fourth year of elementary school, I was kicked out of the house (?) and placed in the dormitory of Kamakura Rinkai Gakuen, a Chiyoda Ward school located near the Zaimokuza beach in Kamakura. From a parent's point of view, it must have been troublesome to raise a troublesome child like myself. Also, from the perspective of a child such as myself, it seemed more enjoyable to live in a crowded community with friends than in a boring, uninhabited house, and I gladly left home (?).

Kamakura Rinkai Gakuen was apparently a school for children who suffered from a difficult home environment. The experience of the past year and a half seems precious to me now. As the school was called Rinkai Gakuen, many children with health problems such as bronchial asthma and were in poor health gathered there. Even now, I cannot forget the voice of H-kun, who coughed through the night day after day, crying and lamenting, "This is so painful”. One morning, all the hair on his head, a fifth grader who was sleeping right next to me, was gone. I will never forget how his bedding was covered with hair. He was in elementary school, but I wonder if it was the result of malnutrition. A few years later, he passed away. It makes me cry to think that with all the medical care available today, H-kun would still be alive today. It is frustrating. I regret to think why H-kun, who was a severe asthmatic and even malnourished, was at Rinkai Gakuen. It is my treasure that I was able to share a dorm with him in elementary school.

At the seaside school, every morning when we woke up, we all got naked and got a dry wipedown with a towel together. This was the norm, and even in the cold of midwinter, we all took off our clothes and got a dry wipe down together. Nowadays, it would be called power harassment! But, there was a time when everyone thought they were getting healthy by getting naked and rubbing their bodies with towels. After that, the routine of going for a walk together to the seaside and looking at the ocean continued for a year and a half. On weekends, my classmates and I would go exploring the coast of Kamakura, and when we found a cave, the whole class would make a lot of chatter, saying things like, "There's a snake!” I miss the days when we would find a cave and the whole class would make a fuss about it. I think that those days in Kamakura, which began with gazing at the sea every day, deepened my connection with the sea in some part of my heart.

In junior high school, I became more interested in tennis than in studying, and during the summer vacation of my second year in junior high school, I went to Los Angeles, California, for a month for my first short-term language study abroad program. Since I stayed at the campus of UCLA, a university located near the ocean in Santa Monica, I often went to Santa Monica on weekends to enjoy the view of the ocean. After returning to Japan and graduating from junior high school, I immediately left for the United States. The destination was again Los Angeles. I spent three years of high school life in Palos Verdes, a town on the outskirts of the city that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. I could see the ocean from my room. After tennis practice, my classmates and I would drive to nearby Redondo Beach on the weekends. Yes, in California, you can drive a car from the age of 15 and a half, so I drove to high school, and I could go to the beach anytime I wanted.

In the summer, I spent two months at a tennis camp that was held on the campus of Pepperdine University in Malibu by the ocean. Every day, it was a normal routine to complete tennis practice while looking out at the Pacific Ocean. When I found time, I would go to Malibu Beach to play. Was such a life of being friends with the ocean still a dream? In my senior year of high school, I experienced a terrible pain.

My high school social studies teacher was Mr. Brandon, whom I will never forget. He owned a yacht in Redondo Beach and suggested that some of his students go to Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles, to play. This was a unique opportunity, and I decided to participate. Among the friends I was going with was a very pretty girl named Osa, who was studying abroad from Sweden at the time. I think four of my classmates gathered together.

On the day of departure, I went to the harbor to find to my surprise that the boat was a small yacht. I had never been on a yacht before, and it was exciting and fun, but it was short-lived. About an hour after we left, I had a terrible stomach ache and thought I had diarrhea. Then all at once I was overcome with nausea and ended up puking all over the boat and into the ocean. And it was still about two hours before we reached the island. It was painful and hard, and there was nothing I could do about it. Also, because it was a yacht, I couldn't sleep, so I stood there all the time clinging to the ropes, panting in agony.

I felt so miserable that I had to throw up so miserably in front of Osa, and I was almost lost in my grief. I was so drained of energy that I could hardly stand. It was like a yacht school from hell. In retrospect, it seems that I had gotten very seasick from being on a yacht that I was not used to. From that day until now, I have never been on a yacht. It was truly a traumatic experience. The only thing that could help me was, could this have been rough for Osa too? I had to go to the bathroom and I couldn’t hold it, all while in the middle of the yacht...

I was also going to college in Los Angeles, and the ocean in Santa Monica was always close by. Also, since many of my classmates were students from Hawaii, we would go to Hawaii together during summer vacation and hang out on the beach in Honolulu. We also took scuba diving lessons in Hawaii and got certified as open divers. I was able to experience the joy of diving to the bottom of the ocean. I thought I had become such a good friend of the ocean, but for some reason, I never got into surfing. I just didn't like the motion of paddling forward on the ocean, wading through the water with my hands, and the thought of having to keep my head up all the time stiffened my neck and shoulders, so I drew back from that.

Now, nearly half a century after those youthful memories of the sea, I have come into contact with the sea again more often than ever. The trip to Tokushima was the catalyst for this. First of all, I went to Ishima, a small house off the coast of Anan City in Tokushima. I was so attached to the island that I even bought a small house there. I could come and go from the port of Anan to Ijima on a liner called Mishima. Later, a company was established on Komatsushima in Tokushima, and a warehouse sprang up right next to the sea. That location was an island surrounded by the sea in the distant past, also known as Wada-jima. The company also launched the Awaji Memorial Museum on Awaji Island, which overlooks the sea. At the nearby port of Higashiura, I also purchased a boat, which I once took to my company in Komatsushima. The ship sank on Wada Island as a result of a series of malfunctions caused by the purchase of a secondhand rag boat.

Later, blessed by various fortunes, I ended up purchasing Takegashima, one of the largest islands in Tokushima Prefecture. Over the next 10 years, I continued to visit the island every weekend to listen to the sound of the waves and keep the island clean. I even jumped into the sea from a boat and climbed up from the Pacific coast. The days passed by as I made every possible effort to get to know the island surrounded by the sea, as if it were my own island.

In 2021, the company decided to expand to Onagawa. I am elated that we were able to establish a logistics warehouse using an abandoned former Onagawa Junior High School left behind in Onagawa that was severely damaged by the earthquake, and build an environment where we can work together with Onagawa residents while enjoying the view of the ocean every day. I would like to continue to contribute to the development of Onagawa. At the same time, I would also like to devote myself to the development of Wada Island in western Japan. I would also like to continue my efforts to improve Takegashima and make it an island that is beautiful no matter if anyone visits or not. Thinking about these things, I realize once again that I am always living with the sea.