The Heavens

June 30, 2003 | Laughing Knees | Comments Off 

The roof of the mon­soon passed ear­lier this evening, re­gal­ing the city with a fiery evening sun­set and later open­ing up the sky to the stars. I went out for a short stroll, to buy some milk and some pud­ding dessert, pass­ing from shadow to shadow. The neigh­bor­hood cats perched atop the al­ley walls, star­ing at me as I passed be­neath them. One fam­ily of newly moved-​​in neigh­bors, for­eign­ers, their British ac­cents ring­ing out in­con­gru­ously in the still Japan­ese night, sat in their tiny rear gar­den, drink­ing beer and laugh­ing. A party of teenage boys squat­ted in the cor­ner of the nearby play­ground, smok­ing and ban­ter­ing. A woman stood by the open win­dow of her kitchen, hum­ming to her­self and wash­ing dishes.

All these peo­ple. Day by day it all goes on.

Eye to Eye

June 28, 2003 | Laughing Knees | 1 Comment 

Ex­hausted Cape May War­bler on Whale­watch­ing Boat, Stell­wagon Banks, Boston Bay, 1990

The mon­soon is a shield of cloud hid­ing the sun and let­ting down its rainy hair. And every­thing is wa­ter col­ored and drenched. This is the time of year when sum­mer wa­ter lev­els are de­ter­mined and the leather shoes shoved into the back of the shoe closet turn fuzzy white with mold. And when the hot breath of hu­mid­ity makes its way into the walls and windows.

I have been sit­ting all day by the win­dow, and the threat of rain has been slow in gath­er­ing. For some rea­son the grey sky re­minded me of a day thir­teen years ago when I was on my third whale­watch­ing boat trip out in Stell­wagon Banks, off the coast of Boston. It was a windy day, the sky over­cast, and the waves as grey as lead. All day the boat had been search­ing for the tell­tale signs of hump­back whale spume, but noth­ing. Most peo­ple had re­treated be­lowdecks to warm up by the stove and a hot mug of co­coa, but I pre­ferred to sit by the gun­whale, still star­ing at the sea.

Sud­denly, like a net of blos­sums drop­ping out of the sky, a blan­ket of Cape May War­blers de­scended on the boat. They landed every­where: on the gun­whales, the deck, the deck chairs, the awning above the cabin door, the roof of the cabin, the life boats, and even on people’s shoul­ders and heads. The tiny, spar­row sized birds barely moved about, look­ing a lit­tle dazed. The nat­u­ral­ist on board ex­plained that they were on their cross-​​the-​​bay leg of their mi­gra­tion, hav­ing started ear­lier in the day from Province­town and head­ing up to Glouces­ter by the evening, a dis­tance of sev­eral hun­dred miles. They were so ex­hausted from their or­deal that their nor­mal re­ac­tion of flee­ing was tem­porar­ily for­got­ten and, sight­ing a lucky re­prieve from the un­bro­ken open wa­ter, took a de­tour from their flight path. For about twenty min­utes hu­mans and birds co-​​existed in per­fect har­mony. I can well be­lieve the story of “Life of Pi”. It is not re­ally that improbable.

But what a won­der to get so close to a wild crea­ture and have it look back at you with­out fear!

Moonlight

June 26, 2003 | Laughing Knees | 1 Comment 

Sketch of camp­ing in the tipi at Oze Marsh, June 21~22, 2003

I told my­self that I would never re­turn to Oze Marsh af­ter my 1994 let down. It is a beau­ti­ful place, but the hordes of peo­ple and the train track-​​like wooden walk­ways make it im­pos­si­ble to en­joy the place as it ought to be ex­pe­ri­enced. Japan­ese park au­thor­i­ties seem never to have heard of eco-​​tourism. There were times as I walked, that the pack­age tour hik­ing groups that passed would make a steady line of bod­ies that stretched the en­tire length of the marsh, as far as the eye could see. The sense of tran­quil­ity and self-​​reliance that draw me to the moun­tains gave way to teeth-​​gritting im­pa­tience as hun­dreds of peo­ple hob­bled by, each re­quir­ing a bright smile and a hearty “Good day!” that didn’t re­flect my real mood.

Yet here I was again, tromp­ing the wooden slats and again seek­ing com­mu­nion with a grace that never quite made it through the in­vis­i­ble bar­rier be­tween board­walk and broad marsh expanse.

I went to the marsh be­cause of months of in­ac­tiv­ity and prob­lems with di­a­betic neu­ropa­thy that left my toes and fin­gers twing­ing with pain. I needed a flat walk, easy on the climb­ing and back­pack laden treads. Oze Marsh was about as easy as a moun­tain walk could get. I was hop­ing to get my sum­mer start here, try out my new light­weight tipi, and work up to the higher moun­tains over the sum­mer. By au­tumn I hoped to be scal­ing the peaks of the rocky roof of Japan, per­haps Yari-​​ga-​​take or Hotaka.

The weather broke through the mon­soon grey with the first real sum­mer heat, sun­light bathing the marsh in ul­tra­vi­o­let gen­eros­ity that just barely man­aged to re­tain the alpine cool­ness of the el­e­va­tion. I was in a t-​​shirt, my walk­ing pants rolled up to the knees, but oth­ers clad them­selves in woolens and um­brel­las against the sun, vests, and clomp­ing leather boots. Many peo­ple gri­maced un­der their sweat and I won­dered why they didn’t just re­move their ex­cess. Out over the marsh grasses a still­ness hung, as if all the crea­tures waited with bated breath for the car­a­vans to pass.

I did get a num­ber of mo­ments of re­prieve and in­sight into the place; and to find these in­ter­ludes I needed to stop and look hard. I waited un­til a lull in the traf­fic jam pre­sented it­self and then I would kneel down at the edge of the board­walk and peer into the tea wa­ter of the marsh bogs. Cold wa­ter with wa­ter lil­lies just be­gin­ning to reach for the sur­face, stands of aza­lea, moun­tain cherry trees, and mug­warts. If the lull was long enough the hid­den frogs would ven­ture ten­ta­tive croaks that blos­sumed into a full-​​scale cho­rus. Sus­pended in the clar­ity of the wa­ter, wrig­gling brown bod­ies of sala­man­ders, gulp­ing bub­bles of air, shut­tled be­tween mud and at­mos­phere. On the wa­ter sur­face flotil­las of whirligigs danced caffeine-​​laden polkas and waltzes while be­neath them jerked the row­boat forms of wa­ter boat­men and wa­ter­bugs. Every­thing moved with de­lib­er­a­tion, in slow mo­tion, as if con­scious of the spend­ing of pre­cious calo­ries. Only the mad call­ing of cuckoo birds in the scat­tered is­lands of birch trees in­di­cated any squan­der­ing of re­sources; but per­haps for the cuck­oos, who leave the rear­ing of their young to oth­ers, there is lee­way for their extravagance.

With the evening ap­peared one of Oze’s des­ig­nated lodg­ing ar­eas. My tipi went up at the back of a bull­dozed clear­ing, just shy of a vil­lage of big­ger, rounder tents. Campers moved about in a hush, the smol­der­ing evening light snuff­ing out loud voices, even the army of teenagers staked out in tents big enough that they could stand up in them. As the dark­ness de­scended black­flies rose from the grass and clouds of midges at­tacked my ex­posed arms, face, and legs. I had for­got­ten the mis­ery of these biters, and all evening I squat­ted swat­ting ab­sently at them. Un­der the en­clo­sure of the tipi the black­flies re­ceded, but the midges con­tin­ued their rampage.

Din­ner was Thai green curry, dried tom yam kun soup, some sliced cel­ery and cu­cum­bers, and a pack­age of par­boiled mixed rice. Dessert was a cup of steam­ing cap­pu­cino coffee.

Sleep took over as the dark­ness fell. Like a bird un­der the shell of the sky, I drifted away into dreams.

And at 2:30 in the morn­ing woke with the need to pay a visit to the toi­let. Out in the crisp air, the ris­ing moon threw blue shad­ows onto the ground and got tan­gled in the fin­gers of bare-​​branched trees. It was cold enough for wisps of breath to waft from my lips and drift up to­wards the stars. The con­stel­la­tions awaited them, un­til the Milky Way and my breath merged, in­dis­tin­guish­able. I stood cran­ing my neck, reach­ing with my eyes, yearning.

The tipi walls weeped con­den­sa­tion and the foot of my sleep­ing bag soaked it up. I fit­ted a garbage bag over the end, and went back to sleep… un­til the teenagers came alive and woke the camp with their teenage ur­gen­cies and in­dif­fer­ent boots stomp­ing by the tipi walls. Long mo­ments slogged by un­til the tipi walls grew bright with dawn and the hys­ter­i­cal laugh­ter of the night­jars gave way to dis­tant ring-​​necked pheas­ants bugling, to cuck­oos and bush war­blers com­pet­ing for choral dominance.

I scram­bled out of the sleep­ing bag and tip­toed along a ne­glected path be­hind the camp­site, lis­ten­ing and watch­ing for birds. The great hoary grey birch tree trunks and glow­ing new leaves grabbed the spaces of light and left a tan­gled pro­fu­sion of veg­e­ta­tion from amidst which the cuck­oos sang and the se­cret crea­tures hid. Noth­ing moved.

The rest of the day brought the sun again, and skies laced with tree swal­lows and lazy, drift­ing clouds. The hordes tromped dili­gently ac­cord­ing to the signs, stop­ping at the des­ig­nated rest ar­eas, buy­ing Hello Kitty trin­kets and drink­ing cans of 600 yen beer at 9:30 in the morn­ing. Cam­eras blinked and hov­ered every­where, quick glimpses of the scenery, the mo­ments cap­tured on film be­fore the eyes could reg­is­ter what they were look­ing at. Hik­ing in a daze.

And back out of the val­ley, up to the pass, where buses waited. The sud­den­ness of im­mo­bile con­crete and as­phalt. The glare of hu­man struc­ture, tree­less and spent, in­di­vid­u­als hur­ry­ing away in their cars. Heads nod­ding among the bus seats, silent blood pound­ing from the ef­fort of two days.

And home, back to the frayed lights and rush. Back to the heart of remembering.

Animals in Confinement

June 20, 2003 | Laughing Knees | 1 Comment 

I have al­ways held a strong dis­like for zoos, feel­ing that all crea­tures ought to have the full ex­pres­sion of their evo­lu­tion­ary com­plex­ity in the way they live. All crea­tures be­came what they are out of an in­ex­tri­ca­ble re­la­tion­ship with their sur­round­ings and thus should live within those surroundings.

How­ever, upon start­ing the book “Life of Pi” by Yann Mar­tel, his ar­gu­ment that an­i­mals don’t feel stress when in con­fine­ment, as long as that con­fine­ment ful­fills their in­di­vid­ual needs has got­ten me think­ing a lot about the na­ture of both what habi­tat means and what our own lives mean as we live in cities to­day. While I won’t give up my con­tention that wild an­i­mals ought to live their wild lives in wild places, I now won­der if per­haps zoos, good zoos, are a nec­es­sary part of car­ing for en­dan­gered species today.

Mar­tel knows his an­i­mals. He has ei­ther re­ally done his re­search or spent a lot of time with an­i­mals, be­cause he knows de­tails about them that only some­one who has spent a lot of time with them could wit­ness. And he doesn’t “cu­tify” them ei­ther, a prac­tice here in Japan that has reached epi­demic pro­por­tions (and is the sad source of the Japan­ese il­le­gal trad­ing in en­dan­gered species).

I re­mem­ber step­ping into a pet shop in Shin-​​Okubo about six years ago and com­ing upon a fen­nec fox curled up in the cor­ner of a tiny cage. I was so shocked that such a rare an­i­mal was be­ing dis­played openly like that, that my anger left me speech­less. But I didn’t even know what to do. Who to ap­proach about this here in Japan? The coun­try where whales are killed now more out of chau­vin­is­tic re­sent­ment than any need for the meat, where whale meat is brazenly sold on mid-​​day women’s va­ri­ety show com­mer­cials, by a woman who presents the whole prod­uct line with such a pleas­ant voice you would think she was hawk­ing perfume.

Peo­ple too of­ten think of an­i­mals as mere com­modi­ties. And with the world get­ting smaller day by day, any re­form of such pot-​​bellied think­ing seems quite unlikely.

Still, Mar­tel has made me pon­der my own prej­u­dices. Time to look at my own motivations.

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