The Station Where Light Shines on the Sediment of Time [Susenji Station]

As you leave the center of Fukuoka, the train, having passed Meinohama and traveled along the elevated tracks, descends to the ground as if setting down a heavy burden.
As the scenery flowing past the window shifts from the inorganic buildings of the city to a peaceful landscape that reflects the vast sky and brings distant mountain ranges into close view, the train slowly reduces its speed and glides into the platform of Susenji Station.

Recently, the station has been reborn, and its appearance has become quite polished.
For someone who knew its former, slightly soot-stained, yet weathered appearance that felt familiar with the touch of human hands, there is a touch of sadness in this new landscape where exposed concrete and orderly wooden textures mingle.
However, once you step down into the new rotary and take a step into the town, the warmth of the 'good old days' still accumulates there like a quiet sediment.
It also looks like a fresh light that gently wraps around the memories of such a town and connects them to tomorrow.

Starting a walk from this station is an act of carefully tracing the time that has passed and the seasons that are newly revolving.

In spring, as you walk away from the bustle of the station building, the lively voices of children celebrating a new beginning at the nearby Susenji Elementary School seem to ride the wind and reach the platform.
It is the unchanging sound of rebirth that this town has repeated for decades, even centuries.
The soft spring sunlight reflects off the brand-new walls of the station building, and the damp wind that signals the end of winter slips through the old tiled roofs of the shopping street.
While the area in front of the station has a simple appearance, if you stretch your legs a bit and walk to Ito Shrine, you will find magnificent cherry blossoms in full bloom, adding spring colors to the quiet grounds.
When those pale pink petals dance in the wind, we feel in our skin both the eternal time flowing through this town and the arrival of a new season.

When summer comes, the relentless chorus of cicadas pours down onto the serene grounds of Myoshoji Temple, located near the station.
If you look toward the shopping street, the signs of snack bars that sleep quietly during the day and the izakayas with their well-worn noren curtains swaying are quietly waiting for the arrival of the night.
At dusk, when high school students returning from club activities and adults returning from work descend the station stairs, the scent of a nostalgic pre-dinner home meal brushes past, mixed with the heat rising from the asphalt.
It is the original summer landscape engraved in this station that one will never forget, even after becoming an adult.

In autumn, the scenery around this station reaches a special moment.
A short walk from the station, the Marukumayama Kofun, which continues to speak of history in silence, begins to be dyed in vivid red.
Amidst the calm townscape, only that spot emits a burning color, solemnly teaching us of the deepening season.
As the sun sets, the streetlights of the shopping district begin to light up one by one, as if forming a constellation.
The faint singing voices and laughter leaking from the thick doors of the snack bars bring a nostalgia that awakens memories of distant days in the hearts of those who use the station.
Perhaps it was more bustling in the past, but I feel that this current, slightly calm atmosphere of the night is the 'true face of the town' that this station possesses.

On a winter morning, the air flowing onto the platform is as sharp and cold as a needle.
The mountains visible in the distance are hazy and white, and the sound of train brakes and the dry alarm of the railroad crossing are absorbed into the clear air.
When waiting for a train on an empty early morning platform, the coldness transmitted from underfoot teaches us both the harshness and the warmth of this town.
On a freezing night, the new light leaking from the station building illuminates the way home at equal intervals like a signpost for the town. People bury their faces in their scarves and return to their beloved homes from this station with quiet steps.

Myoshoji Temple and the Kofun that hold the depth of history, the cherry blossoms of Ito Shrine waiting in the distance, and the elementary school where the voices of children who will carry the future resonate.
A newly reborn station that exists as the center connecting them.
The bustle of lively izakayas and the quiet time that flows just behind them, undisturbed by anyone.
Susenji Station is a place where these things never repel each other, but rather slowly melt and accumulate over a long period of time.
There, there is a calm and rich 'sediment' that the modern age, which only seeks efficiency and speed, has left behind.

The sound of the Chikuhi Line moving away with a clatter continues to carve a regular rhythm today, melting into the silence of the town.
Urban convenience and untouched simplicity.
And the past that has been carefully protected, and the future that is about to be woven.
At this station, which is right on the boundary line, while cherishing the beauty of the revolving seasons, I feel the certain heartbeat that the town continues to carve into this warm nostalgia.

I love this station,
this town,
to a maddening degree.

Iroha Takanashi

#ILoveThisStation