Toki-sensei,
Today is the first rain in quite a while. Watching the soft rain from inside is the best, but if you’re planning to go out it strikes you as quite cold and depressing. I wish it would get warm soon. I miss the rain you get in the gentle heat of early summer.

The sounds and smells of the town I lived in are a little like the ones you describe. When I was an elementary school student, at one point we lived in a house on a shopping street, and I could always hear the spirited voice coming from the produce store, and smell the meat croquettes from the butcher’s. When I woke up early I used to check and see if the tofu shop I could see from my window had started getting ready to open yet. Even now I frequently think back to the atmosphere of that shopping street. It’s a special place that I hope never changes.

I’ve just got in a taxi. I’m writing this letter on the way to my next job. I can never breezily hail a cab and get into it with the self-assurance and style I dreamt about when I was young. In reality I hail a taxi by waving and shouting “Hey!”, and say stuff to the driver like “Hello”, and “Thank you” as I haul myself inside. But running around Tokyo for work like this, I’ve gotten to know many different places, and now I’m writing a letter to somebody I met this way. I think it’s sort of romantic.

How about you, Toki-sensei — how about your childhood ideals versus the realities of adulthood? Are there times you think, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”? I’m interested to know the kind of ideal woman the young Toki-sensei held dear when she was growing up.

Speaking of which, I thought that when I grew up I’d live in a chic Daikanyama apartment, and that every day would be a fashion show thanks to my walk-in closet. A girl’s imagination knows no bounds. Compare that to my goal this year, which is to save space by throwing something out every time I buy something new. Pathetic, huh!