Where Light Pauses: A Memory of the Engawa

By Kokoro Still

In traditional Japanese homes, the engawa —
a wooden corridor between inside and outside —
is more than architecture.
It is a quiet place where presence listens, and memory lingers in light.

Some memories don’t arrive as images.
They return as places — quiet, unmoving, half in shadow.
I don’t remember what was said.
But I remember the light on the floorboards, and the way time moved more slowly there.

That place was the engawa.
Where light paused. And I did, too.

More Than a Margin

The engawa was not designed for a single purpose.
It wasn’t a hallway, nor a veranda.
It was the space between —
where inside and outside blurred,
and nothing had to explain itself.

You didn’t go there to do anything.
But time passed. Light gathered, and let go.
Dust floated through the air, and no one swept it away.

Architecture of Presence

The floor was raised. The roof extended.
The garden side remained open, even in summer.
Wind passed through. Shadows moved gently.
The house breathed through the engawa.

It was neither private nor public.
You didn’t knock. You didn’t announce yourself.
You simply appeared, and if someone was there, you sat.

With Others, and Not

I remember the sound of my grandfather’s fan.
He didn’t speak much. Neither did I.
But we were not silent to each other.
We shared the space without filling it.

Even the cat seemed to understand —
it didn’t seek our attention, only our company.
Stillness was not something we kept.
It was something we gave to the space, together.

When Memory Outlives Use

Years later, the house was empty.
The garden overgrown. The fusuma stiff.
But the light still paused on the engawa.
The same warm angle. The same hush.

As if the space remembered what we had forgotten.

Still, There

You don’t return to the engawa.
Not in the way you return to a room, or a street.
You return by slowing down.
By sitting with nothing in your hands.

Between the self you speak from,
and the one you forget is listening —
the engawa remains.

*The featured image was generated using ChatGPT.*

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