Sometimes I really don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

So I go looking for the sunset.

Just to see people. And I wonder, do they? The question’s like a balm.

It quiets my unease.

Are we supposed to know, or is the sunset enough? I think that’s why I chase it. Because I feel like it should be, a city cold and purple, and if I don’t know what I’m supposed to do at this moment in life, at least I can watch the lights come on. Others drifting too. Unsure of where to go.

Will it always be like this?

A feeling of uncertainty even if on the surface it seems we’ve found direction?

Maybe.

Probably.

When I let go of trying to figure it out, things seem to fall into place.

On my way home, I stopped for sushi where I had one of my first meals when I moved to Japan. It’s about a five-minute walk from my apartment.

A green noren hung in front of the restaurant, flapping gently in the cold.

I slid open the door. It was empty. Two chefs behind the bar, slicing fish.

‘Hitori desu?’ One person?

‘HAI DOZO.’

I sat at the bar and asked for tea. This place was a memory. I was a different person then. No idea what was in store. But I came here, all timid, and was served by the same large man before me.

The chef’s son poured the tea; out came the nigiri: salmon, uni, ebi, unagi, tako, maguro.

His wife brought miso soup with an egg in it — never had that before. Tasted like ginger, very hot, nourishing.

I’d say a few words in Japanese. He’d reply in English. OKAY. YES.

Are you gonna tell him? I thought. This was the first sushi spot I hit when I moved to Osaka?

I was still alone at the bar. It was quiet. The son turned on the tv in the corner of the room. I was nervous again.

‘This was my first sushi when I moved to Osaka, about a year and a half ago.’

‘OH!’ He laughed. ‘You’ve never come back?!’

It’s never failed me. Saying the thing I want to say and know I must.

‘Eigo doyatte benkyo shimashta ka?’ I asked. How did you learn English?

‘I lived in San Diego thirty-five years ago,’ he said, his eyes smiling as if recollecting a joyful period.

‘I lived in San Diego before coming to Japan.’

A few people passing by stopped in and placed an order. He’d greet them heartily.

‘I love it here in Osaka.’

‘WHAT! No, San Diego is better.’

‘Why’d you come back?’

‘This was my dad’s restaurant. He wanted me to come back.’

His son refilled the steaming mug of tea.

The other chef had been cutting and rolling.

‘Do you know Setsubun?’ the chef asked me.

‘The festival?’ I’d heard the name, but was unsure of exactly what it was.

The other chef started pantomiming eating a very large sushi roll and shushing.

‘YES! You eat one big roll, no talking or drinking, just eating. We’re rolling all night. All night and all day for tomorrow.’

Setsubun is the day before the beginning of spring in the old calendar in Japan.

‘It’s a day to bring luck.’ He pointed to the wall, covered in what looked like receipts. ‘All orders. We’re rolling all night.’

‘Ii ne.’

I asked to take a picture. The chef asked his wife and son to come out from the back, and I took a shot of them all behind the bar.

How much had happened between my first visit and tonight? About a year and a half? In my life, more than I can comprehend. In theirs, a year and a half worth of living. They seemed happy. Kind.

The chef came to the door as they said goodbye. He shook my hand as I left through the flapping noren.

Everything made sense again. That is what I’m doing.