30℃超えのカンカン照りとセミの声。クロアチアでの夏休みは予想外に子供の頃の思い出にひたる時間になった。

少し前に「故郷の味」について書いたけれど、「故郷の音」というものも存在すると気付いた。夏の暑さとセミは切っても切れない間柄。だから、セミのいないドイツは、どんなに暑くなっても、本物の夏と言うには一味足りない。そんなドイツからクロアチアの空港に降り立ち、最初に耳に入ったのはセミの声だった。一瞬にして、日本の実家に意識は飛び、締めた窓を通り越して聞こえてくるセミの大合唱を思い出した。

そこへきて、滞在したストブレッチという小さな海辺の町には、故郷を思い出すいろんな懐かしいが溢れていた。ベランダの洗濯物、アスファルトの坂道、電線、少し錆びた階段の手すり。通りの角を曲がるたびに、子供時代の昭和の風景が眼前に現れる。セミの声を聞きながらじっと立ち止まり、遠い記憶と照らし合わせる作業を繰り返した。何故だか少しドキドキした。あまりにも重なる部分が多すぎて、幻のようにさえ感じ、瞬きをしたら消えてしまうような気がしたからかもしれない…。

Strong summer sun, temperature over 30℃ and the drone of cicadas. Unexpectedly, our trip to Croatia took me on a journey back to my childhood.

I wrote taste of home sometime ago, and now realised that there is also ‘sound of home’. The hight of summer and cicadas are inseparable to me but there is no cicadas in Berlin. In summer, I always feel like something is missing no matter how high the temperature goes up! I flew from such Berlin and arrived at Split Airport in Croatia. What first caught my ear was the drone of cicadas. For a fraction of a second, I was at my mother’s place in Japan and listening a huge chorus of cicadas coming through windows closed.

Furthermore, a seaside town Stobreč, where we stayed, had so many elements that reminded of my hometown in a very nostalgic way: a balcony with drying laundry, a steep road paved with asphalt, electrical wire or staircase handrails with paint peeling off and little rusty, which all became unfamiliar to me since living in Germany. Every time I turned a corner, a scene from my childhood appeared in front my eyes. While listening to the drone of cicadas, I stood still and compared the picture in front of me to my memory in my head repeatedly. I was nervous somewhat. Maybe because they surprisingly resembled each other, I felt as if it were illusion and could vanish just like that…