The Weight of Coming Home

I walked past the old bakery on my street this morning and noticed they finally took down the plywood boards. It had been under construction for months, a dusty, closed-off space that made the whole block feel a little bit hollow. Seeing the fresh paint and the glass windows back in place felt like watching someone wake up from a long nap. It reminded me that we spend so much of our lives waiting for things to be finished, for the scaffolding to come down, and for the world to look like it belongs to us again. We are always in a state of becoming, aren’t we? We patch up our own histories, brick by brick, hoping that when the work is finally done, the light will hit us just right. It is a strange, quiet relief to see something restored to its own skin. Do you ever feel like you are waiting for your own grand reopening?

Madoka Hori has captured this feeling perfectly in her image titled The New Tokyo Station. It shows a place finding its glow again after a long time in the dark. Does this scene make you think of a place you have seen change over the years?