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The Boy loves sand dunes

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

We flew to Tottori today. The Boy was very well behaved on the flight. Then we went to see sand dunes!

They're gigantic dunes, stretching along the coast of the prefecture in the vicinity of the prefecture's capital city. The Boy has never been a fan of walking on sand, but he delighted in this experience, and ran all over the place.

He insisted on running to a pond that had formed behind the largest dune—apparently where a creek had come out from under the dunes further back from the shore—and I had a hard time prizing him away from the spot. And so it was that I wound up crawling up the steep back of the biggest dune with the kid on my shoulders.

And let me tell you. I'm no longer young. Having had a violent asthma attack last year (quite out of the blue), I now carry an inhaler with me because things seem to be deteriorating a bit on that front (I'm curiously susceptible to lung ailments in Tokyo). I didn't need the inhaler, but I did need to stop and catch my breath. Oh squandered youth.

Speaking of youth, The Boy had no problem with energy once atop the dune, and he started scaring the hell out of us with sudden feints towards the steep drop-offs at the dune's fore as well as the back side. Trying to keep him occupied, Mari gave him a drink and some toys, but he was still very interested indeed in the way the horizon seemed to fall away only a couple of meters away.