10:04 and the path is still mine. Later there will be tour groups, umbrellas lifted against no rain, phones held higher than eyes. Right now it's just the canal, moving slower than I expect water to move, and a heron somewhere deciding whether I'm worth the effort of flying away.
The maples haven't committed yet. Green at the center, red only at the tips, like they're testing the color before they fully trust it. I keep thinking of Sao Paulo in June, how the jacarandas just drop everything purple overnight, no hesitation. Kyoto does it differently. Kyoto negotiates with autumn.
A bicycle leans against a stone wall near a shuttered noodle shop, back wheel turned at an angle that makes me think whoever left it was in no rush at all. I photograph it twice. Once for the light, once because something about an unattended bicycle always feels like proof that a place trusts itself.
The canal runs narrow, maybe a meter wide, clear enough to see the stones underneath shift color depending on where the light lands. I crouch for a while, longer than necessary, and a woman walking a small dog passes without looking at me twice. No one here finds a person kneeling by water strange. Saudade for a place I haven't even left yet, that's the trick this path plays on you. Ten more minutes, I tell myself. The film doesn't mind waiting, and neither, this morning, do I.
