Childhood, maturation, and the loss of innocence

Just had a conversation with N over lunch that was an extension of my marathon phone conversation with E on Sunday. I was telling E about my current exploration of the Studio Ghibli oeuvre via Netflix and highlighted Kiki's Delivery Service and Only Yesterday as my favorite films. I was trying to explain why I loved them as much as I did and kept coming back to the phrase "a sweetness that marks the loss of innocence."

Only Yesterday is ostensibly a story about a 30-something salarywoman, Taeko, who takes a trip to the countryside to help some distant relations with their safflower harvest, forges a close friendship with a local man, recounts stories of her childhood, and rediscovers herself in the process. Already, the film has leitmotifs recurrent in all of my favorite compositions: person retreats to nature on a spiritual journey (Walden), person engages in physical toil and gains emotional clarity (Under the Tuscan Sun), misunderstood child comes of age (Les Quatre Cents Coups).

It is an elegant treatment of the idea that no one really changes; that the new self is really just the old self with new layers. In the final scene, Taeko is on the train back to her humdrum, solitary existence and gazes unseeingly ahead, as if deep in thought. The credits roll, the first wistful strains of "Ai wa Hana, Kimi wa sono Tane" play, and a white butterfly flits about the empty train. Then, apparitions of her long-forgotten classmates peer out from behind the seats as her 10-year-old self emerges and tugs on her arm, willing her to come to herself. Her eyes widen and she stands, as if seeing for the first time. She grabs her luggage and makes for the exit as the children jump and cheer around her. Guided by them, she crosses the platform and boards the train that's headed back in the other direction, back to the countryside and back to Toshio.

I can't fully explain why this scene makes my heart ache with the sort of dread I can only imagine I would feel if I were witnessing my own death. I suppose it has something to do with the recognition of childhood as belonging distantly to the past, that can never fully be recaptured. I thought this sense of loss was universal but E thinks happiness only becomes richer with age. She thinks the childhood joy of spinning around in front of her house doesn't compare to the depth of feeling that comes from watching a close friend get married, for example. In our conversation today, N agreed, but acknowledged that there was something wistful about never being able to recapture the simple pleasures of youth, like running around outside in a game of tag.