Everything's changed, but all's still the same...

So there I am, back again in Osaka. Good old Osaka. It really is great to see my family here again, see how the kids have grown, each in their own way: Upwards, sideways and in the way they start to handle their fights on their own...

And what a change in volume, from staying in a quiet office with sometimes nobody dropping in for a few days, to a house full of kids and adults, all talking and laughing and shouting and screaming... granted, the latter part is mostly done by the kids, but at a volume that still amazes me, taken that the lungs that produce those sounds are what, a quarter of my own lungs' size? They still know how to properly use them! 

Another 180 degree change is that suddenly your body isn't your own anymore. You sit down at the computer and one of the kids will come and sit on your lap to watch what you are doing. Walking into the room you are free game for hugs, as a climbing frame, or just a convenient means of transport. Oh, and to get them things they can't reach or open, of course. Still, when they come to hug you all of that doesn't matter. 

I have met some more of my old friends that are still in town, and a few more will come back here while I'm here, so I will get a chance to see them again, too. It's funny to see how all these people are linked to me and to others, it's like a huge spiderweb: People I've met on the job in London, who are from Osaka but I've never met here before. Or the friend who I worked with during the Expo in Nagoya, who now lives in Germany but came to visit, and who's friend we once met by accident and who became my friend since then, and who I introduced to the family and who is now their friend as well... and the web grows and grows, and becomes more and more intertwined with other lives... and then you sometimes find the threads you have sent out in one direction coming back to you in some roundabout way.

A lot has changed here since I've lived here, but a lot is still the same. Some people have moved away, some have stayed, some have returned. Some still do what they did five years ago, some have started new things. Some people I still meet, others I have lost contact with. We all make our way through whatever and wherever our path has taken us by now. Everything's changed, but all is still the same... I'm curious to see what will happen next...