Out the window, I caught a glimpse of the yellow silk tails of a Shinto priest's robes. He was walking up the stone staircase behind my house, followed by men in black suits. I grabbed my camera and ran after them.
The stairway leads up the mountain to a bamboo grove where a small shrine sits. By the time I reached the clearing, the priest was mumbling chants in front of the shrine and the suited men were looking on behind him. I hung back at a distance.
As I watched, I realized those weren't just men in black suits, they were my neighbors! A school of eight or nine fishermen, the carpenter, the builder and the man with the long gray-streaked ponytail -- they were all there.