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Video Hut 3 — Afterglow

The house my grandfather left behind still carries a strong trace of his life. It feels strange — and somehow a little guilt-inducing — that I now visit that house more often for the purpose of sorting through his belongings than I ever did while he was alive. And yet, I sometimes think that using the house while keeping him in my thoughts, rather than simply returning to everyday life and forgetting both him and the house, might be a way of honoring his spirit.

When I imagine that the spirits of our ancestors still linger in this land or within those walls, it seems as if this world and the next are really one and the same — and we are simply drifting on the wind between them.

The house my grandfather built in 1969 — crafted with the finest materials of its time — has, after all these years, begun to show the wear of age. With its master gone, parts of the house have stopped working, and signs of damage have started to appear. I believe my grandfather hoped that his children and grandchildren would protect the land passed down through generations and carry it into the future. But it’s clear that no form, appearance, or way of being can remain unchanged forever. At times, the more we resist the natural flow of change and try to hold on tightly to things as they are, the more our very fixation may hasten their transformation.

As we continue to lose things — our possessions, our surroundings, even our own bodies — what are we truly able to preserve?

In my adolescence, carrying a vague sense of unease about the future, I spent nearly every day chasing baseballs scattered across the school field. When it grew too dark to see the balls, the team would move as one, using wooden rakes to groom the field. Even now, I sometimes recall the feeling of those moments — a quiet sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. The relief of finishing a hard practice. The distant sky would not yet be fully dark, and its gentle gradient seemed almost like a blessing for the world.

I wonder, how different am I now from the person I was then, endlessly chasing after baseballs? The circuit has not ended — it still goes on.

Sorting through the belongings of someone who has passed away is never easy. After all, each item is tied to their feelings and memories, as well as my own. Even if something is no longer needed in daily life, even if I have no plan to use it in the future, it’s hard to let go of a memory. How does one decide what to keep and what to part with? How can we bring ourselves to reach a verdict? What exactly exists in that space between “decided” and “undecided”?

In sports, time often plays a role in determining an outcome. In professional wrestling, a three-count by the referee decides the match. But who really determines the end of a wrestling match — the wrestlers or the referee? Ignoring the relationship between owner and possession, I continue to count… one, two, three.

For athletes, the stadium; for musicians, the concert hall — both are stages where players shine under the spotlight. But even an unattended drum set or a tennis ball lying motionless without an opponent carries its own kind of beauty. Is it just me who hears the sudden sound of drums echoing on a deserted tennis court as a “resonance of existence” defying an empty space? Like the Sheep Man says, as long as the tennis ball keeps flying, we have to keep moving — inside a set of rules we don’t even know who decided.

“As long as the music’s playing, you’ve got to dance. Do you understand what I’m saying? Dance. Just keep dancing. Don’t even think about why you’re dancing. Don’t think about the meaning. Because there is no meaning. Once you start thinking about things like that, your feet’ll stop moving.”

— *Dance Dance Dance* by Haruki Murakami (1988)

After gathering up the dolls and stuffed animals from my grandparents’ house, my parents’ house, and my own, I lined them all up together. Then, there was an oddly wondrous scene in front of my eyes— something that almost resembled a natural landscape of mountains, forests, or a coastline. Each of these objects must hold memories tied to them. Objects become vessels for memory.

And if the souls and memories of my grandparents are still drifting all around us, then perhaps the world is far more complex — a place where people and things coexist in the same space, simultaneously, in multiple dimensions. A world filled with possibilities that transcend death and separation.