A FEW WEEKS AGO I thought I was taking my final trip to Osaka while living in Japan. Expectations were high for a night out with the big five — what I and my four best friends whom I’d met in my training group teaching English call ourselves.

We had a jolly ol’ time, but after a couple of rough nights in my hostel I left Osaka feeling sick with a sour taste in my mouth, swearing to put my hostel days behind me for good.

If that was my last taste of Osaka during this chapter, so be it. This past week, however, I ended up unexpectedly visiting the big O, as my girlfriend Coco and I had a trip to Kyoto planned and ended up adding a night in Osaka on the way.

With zero expectations, it ended up being a pitch perfect sayonara to a city that holds a very special place in my heart, where for the past two years my spirit would flourish and my soul would dig.

Osaka, forever my Japanese hometown; I couldn’t have asked for a better experience gallivanting beneath your neon lights for one last night while living in Japan.

Coco and I explored Dotonburi, the beating heart of the city with its endless food stalls and neon billboards lining the canal. We drifted amongst the scents of frying sweets swirling in the night and stumbled upon a peaceful shrine tucked within the mayhem.

A couple of cats dwell within the shrine grounds, waiting to have their chins scratched. Smoke flows from a jokoro, an earthen incense holder, filling the area with a woodsy scent. I’ve always loved this little gem, grateful that fate guided me there to appreciate it with somebody I love.

The hunt was then on for taiyaki, grilled cakes in the shape of a golden fish with sweet filling. It was getting late. We nearly gave up our search after wandering for a bit. But then we hit the jackpot, a bustling stall dishing out these hot and crispy delicacies.

Do we get one, two, or three to try them all? We wondered.

We have one life. Why settle? We ordered one sweet potato, one adzuki (red bean), and one apple, eating them on the stairs next to the stall. I guess we were having fun because people were walking by and smiling when they saw us. That made me happy.

The morning was crisp and blue. After wandering around Osaka Castle I ran along the river.

I know this city, I thought. It’s so wild to feel at home in Japan. This country is filled with memories, memories which make me who I am. Yet we are nothing but a river flowing forward.

There’s this Japanese phrase, ichi-go ichi-e, which literally means one life, one encounter. I actually got it tattooed with some of my best friends in Osaka.

Heraclitus, the 5th-century BC Greek philosopher, said it a different way: You never step in the same river twice.

Ichi-go ichi-e comes from the ancient tea ceremony tradition and means that no matter how many times something has happened, this is the first time that it’s happened now.

We can’t go back to who we were, where we were; even though every single experience is entirely new, we have these things called memories, and they so easily shape the present. Some memories are beautiful, like the ones I have of Osaka, imbuing the metallic city with wonder.

Yet some memories are painful and can haunt us for years, like those from childhood that we feel unable to rid ourselves of. Painful memories can be stored in our bodies as trauma and chronic pain, something I’ve dealt with throughout my twenties. But they can also be erased.

I do this each time I challenge the pain, face it, and create fresh memories — new neural pathways in my brain which override the conditioning of pain.

When we make our lives rigid as stone, everything that happens leaves a lasting impression. We’re offended easily. A small thing that doesn’t go our way ruins our day. A childhood adversity scars us for life. What I’m working on is becoming soft like water, embodying ichi-go ichi-e, so all of life may simply flow and I may cherish every day as if it’s my first.

What if we could see the world anew again and again? What if we could wake up and marvel at the winter trees or lose ourselves in drifting clouds, time after time?

I’m just happy to be alive on this rock where above us shines the moon, and with these eyes I see color, darkness and light, permeating all things. To be human is to know laughter and friendship and challenges that’ll feel insurmountable.

These challenges give our lives meaning.

On my run along the river, I’d stop to do pushups in the grass, my hands against the dirt and fallen gingko leaves, breathing in deeply this new season of my life where the memories in my body won’t hold me back.

I cherish the feeling of my heaving chest breathing in fresh air; if this was never taken away from me, perhaps it wouldn’t mean so much.

But for six years I questioned why my body felt broken and why I couldn’t find answers. Earlier this year I discovered that my chronic pain is TMS — a mindbody condition — and it’s my nervous system that needs healing, not my body.

To heal one must live without fear, allowing the pain instead of fighting it. This shows the brain that the pain is nothing to fear. Then, it will fade.

This is simplified, but just know that there is hope no matter what you face. I hope that my story may serve as inspiration for others to keep the faith when they don’t know how.

Just keep going. Everything changes eventually.

Osaka was about the people. It felt like I was building a life there, because I was. I made lifelong friends, one of them being Santana, a kindred soul on his own international spirit quest who introduced me to Kauru — the owner of the matcha shop Osaka Chakai — who was like a mother to me while in Osaka.

The list of meaningful relationships goes on. It’s the people, man. My friends made the city, the people make the life. I love you all so goddam much, my ever-expanding tribe.

For lunch we had Shanghai-style soup dumplings at one of my favorite spots, then matcha at Osaka Chakai. Afterwards we serendipitously found a yarn store where Coco picked up the yarn she’d use to make my cocoons.by.coco hood, an absolutely perfect find.

I couldn’t believe how it all unfolded. I guess without the pressure I could just go to Osaka and hang, leaving myself and the experience open to whatever the universe wanted to show me.

When we let things flow as they may down the river of time unblocked by the heavy stones of expectations — places, people, events, even ourselves — we see them as they really are. This time I left not with a sour taste but with an unshakable grin. Mata ne (see you again), Osaka.

We took an afternoon train about forty minutes to Kyoto, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. When I lived in Osaka, I’d come here by myself on day trips to explore, think, and immerse myself in this profoundly mysterious place.

It’s home in a different way from Osaka. This city is eternal, as if it’s always been here and always will be like a star in the night sky, and I merely get to witness it shining.

That night we wandered the quiet backstreets and found ourselves alone in a shrine beside a pond under a willow tree, beneath the drifting clouds concealing a yellow moon.

Something very special happened, a moment I think we’ll both remember as long as we live.

In the morning I ran along the main river Kamogawa and into the hills. I followed a canal until I reached a massive gate, the Chion-in Sanmon Gate, which leads to Chionin Temple.

Kyoto comprises over 1,600 temples and 400 shrines, yet it doesn’t feel like Disneyland with lines and rules and regulations (except maybe for the main few temples). Rather, it truly feels like one is in an ethereal labyrinth that entwines with the past and the natural world with endless mysteries to be explored.

I ran up the stone steps through the gate and into the serene temple grounds, then climbed further into the hills until I fell into a canopy of burning red, orange, and purple maple leaves, beneath them a small pagoda and a plot of grass.

With an electricity flowing through my being I did some pushups in the grass and some qigong poses, my breath cold and clear and steam rising from my skin.

I felt like a samurai in a time immemorial, listening to the birds in the trees as maple leaves fell from the overhanging branches. I felt so good; at home. I’m at home in the world wherever I go, I realized. I will find beauty or I will make it. I won’t waste a day.

This life I’m pursuing and the days I’m living fill me with fire, energy, love. My appreciation for the natural world and my reverence for history and place are unquenchable.

Kyoto is home. Osaka is home. Tokyo is home. The world is my home. This is my story and this is all I want. My soul longs to get all that I can out of my brief sojourn on earth. I’m young. I have freedom and health.

These are more important to me than anything and I don’t take them for granted, and that’s because of what I made it through. I’m still in the process of healing, but I’m no longer in the prison of my mind thinking my body is fundamentally broken.

I’m free.

The next morning I ran along the river without headphones, passing locals on bikes and other joggers. I’d do pushups as I’d pass under each bridge, my hands upon the stones listening to the rushing water. It’s a nice change of pace running without music, just listening to the surroundings.

There were large stones crossing the river at the end of my run. I went to the center of the river and put my hands together in a prayer of gratitude. A handful of cranes surrounded me and a soft rain fell through the morning light.

I could feel myself changing, growing, evolving — but there’s something integral that remains. I guess life is just whittling away the bullshit until our essence is all that’s left.

How do we know our essence? Perhaps it’s what shines when nobody else’s around, like how I feel when running on the river or when in the hills, or when I sit to write early in the morning with a cup of coffee, or when I let go and cry. That’s me.

I’m a writer. I’m an athlete. I’m a child and a flawed man. I’m Vinny, yet so much more than these labels. We are love, having a human experience day after day. There’s nothing we must do but take the ride and marvel at this fact.

Osaka and Kyoto, a Tale of Two Cities which occupy a season of my twenties and a very special place in my heart.