Toyama Marathon Blog, Episode 2 - Back to the Books, and Escaping Being "Maysick"
It is called go-gatsu-byou in Japanese, which directly translates to "May Sickness" in English... Hold on a second. I need to change the playlist on Apple Music right now. I can't write to this garbage. I had selected a "chill" playlist and it has now somehow morphed into some sort of middle-aged-trying-to-get-my-twenties-back, listen-to-me-mumble-and-moan dance-y bullshit. *** Okay. Much better. As I was saying, there is a cultural phenomenon in Japan called "May Sickness" and basically what it is, is a marked desire not to return to the daily grind after the ten day "Golden Week" holiday in late April/Early May. This shit gets so bad that a lot of people actually commit suicide. Hard to believe, maybe, but for those who have gotten a firsthand glimpse into the heavy socio-cultural pressure where work and school are concerned here, it's not so hard to imagine. To put it in a nutshell: Springtime is beautiful, but is also a very, very stressful time for many Japanese. To be quite honest, it's been a stressful time for me as well, this year. That said, something about today put some goose in my step. I felt driven. The sun was out, weather was warm, and I got out for a run. This lyric jumped out at me from one of the songs I was listening to: Don't think about the things you fear. Just be glad to be here. Yep. Good shit for sure. I also managed to get back into the Haruki Murakami book I had put down since last fall. Strangely enough, where I picked up today in the novel, it is late May. Funny? Perhaps. I feel like it's pretty synchronistic. Anyway, I got a good 3-mile run in today at an alright time. My average pace now is naturally much faster than it was this time last year. How about you guys? What's new in your end of the world??? -GS *** Previous posts in this series: Episode 1 - https://scorum.com/en-us/running/@running-japan-77/toyama-marathon-blog-episode-1-music-springtime-and-looking-ahead-to-summer