Those days.........

( Rollei 35SE, Sonnar 40mm F2.8, Neopan SS )



Summer means sunflowers in my mind. I was still an elementary school pupil. No need for fancy penmanship. Just a sound of the word “sunflower” is good enough.

I am not even sure why summer is equal to sunflower for me. I do not have any sweet memories about those days that sunflower reminds me. I have no real reason that I can explain.

When I was a child, blooming sunflowers automatically meant they have kids in their houses. Those sunflowers were way taller than me and brick walls. Huge flowers were smiling at me with the background of deep blue summer sky.

I had a brainwave this spring that I decided to plant sunflower seeds. I planned to bring myself back to those old days. Once I went into the shop, however, I was kind of petrified because of the fact that there are millions of kinds of sunflower seed on the shelves. It was totally out of my expectation. When I was a kid, sunflowers simply meant sunflowers. Yes, I mean, those big tall sunflowers! I did not have to choose. After many decades have passed, now we have so many kinds of sunflowers, thanks for hybridization technology or whatever you call it. This reminded me of the first time when I walked into the American supermarket. I was totally lost which peanut butter to choose.

Again, my sunflowers have to be those big tall ones. It does not matter how old I am now. I carefully avoided small kinds with very fancy names that you can even grow on the tables. My choice was, as you can imagine, “GIANT”. This must be it!

I planted the seeds, waited, waited, and waited patiently. When I saw their seed leaves, I was very excited. They were already big. That’s it! That is my sunflowers!

Well, I can’t proceed any further without mentioning one important fact. My wife was the one who took care of these sunflowers. I did not.

In any case, my sunflowers. They have bloomed. I noticed something was not right. My sunflowers should have more massive stalks, their height should be much taller, and the flowers should be much bigger. Since I expected so much, that was a complete shock to me. I almost had to lie down in bed for three days to recover.

It was only today when I found the reason. I am now much taller than those days. Sunflowers should not be blamed. Those days when I, with straw hat, was looking up the huge sunflowers against blue summer sky can’t come back. I am missing those old days. They are gone forever.


( Japanese translation )