Genius Loci

August 27, 2003 | Laughing Knees | 7 Comments 

Cooked eggs of­fered to the de­ity (“kami”) of Shi­rakoma Lake, Yat­sug­atake, Japan 2003.

These last four weeks have weighed heav­ily in my heart and mind, drag­ging con­fi­dence and cer­tainty into a dark cor­ner, and leav­ing lit­tle space for car­ry­ing on with day to day in­dul­gences, least of all blog­ging. It is the cul­mi­na­tion of a per­sonal cri­sis that shunted to the fore­front of my life two years ago, a week be­fore the New York tragedy, and now has fi­nally reached its dy­ing throes. It’s not some­thing I can open up about on the in­ter­net, but suf­fice it to say that, sec­ond only to my di­a­betes, it ranks as the most emo­tion­ally de­bil­i­tat­ing event in my life. I have been strug­gling to come to terms with it, to wrap an emo­tional clasp around it, and come out of the whole thing stronger and bet­ter for it. But it’s elu­sive and stub­born. So much has shaken loose. So much that I took for granted be­fore no longer holds firm be­neath my feet. And each time I face the com­puter screen in an at­tempt to write some­thing worth­while, the words fail me.

So I de­cided to­day to write about that which is caus­ing the words to fail.

A close friend re­cently crit­i­cized me for fo­cus­ing so much on com­plain­ing and an­a­lyz­ing the less fa­vor­able as­pects of my present sit­u­a­tion, es­pe­cially in this blog. I’m not sure that is what I have been do­ing, cer­tainly not af­ter I de­cided that I would no longer com­ment and rave about the sit­u­a­tion in Iraq or my greatly al­tered opin­ions about the U.S., but my friend had a point… over these last two years I have more and more drawn into my­self and blocked out much of the world around me, most of all draw­ing away from any fur­ther po­ten­tial emo­tional tremors from friends and peo­ple who might be­come friends.

Look­ing back on the posts of the last few months a sense of re­mote­ness (my friend adds “tragedy”) sur­rounds the words; there are so few peo­ple and so lit­tle sense of hu­mor. You would think that my life is just made up of the blog and the moun­tains, and that I shun be­ing close to peo­ple. And yet that is not who I re­ally am. If you would come to know me you would un­der­stand that I love a good laugh and love com­pany. These days I don’t know who I am any more.

This too will pass, I know. The world will move on, as will the rough seas of these ail­ing mo­ments. I will laugh again and there will be friends to share the highs and lows with. It will pass, but in the mean­time I seek some­thing to grab a hold of to get through this. In the con­fu­sion of fac­ing some­one while sound­less words die in my mouth, in the dis­ori­ent­ing panic that awakes when some­one asks a ques­tion and I find I must haul up some re­serves to fix a steady im­age of my­self for a suf­fi­cient re­ply, I have been div­ing deeper and deeper, away from all the de­mands and un­nec­es­sary so­cial con­ven­tions. I have needed this time away, alone. I have needed time to take stock and re­group. I have needed to re­mem­ber that alone I am all right, that I won’t drown in my own self doubt.

Get­ting out, away from the fin­gers of the com­puter and be­yond the opac­ity of walls and ceil­ing, al­lows me to grow small and in­signif­i­cant. I can for­get my­self out un­der the sky. The smaller I be­come the greater the pres­sure of my heart and soul, like com­pressed air at high al­ti­tude. I have a the­ory that, were I to wink out of ex­is­tence while out in the lap of the world, be­com­ing in­fi­nitely small, what­ever great­ness lies at har­bor in my soul would burst out in a tan­tivy of wings, to dis­si­pate into the smoke of what is all-​​encompassing. And I would surge through the aether like a pulse of blood. These are my dreams of fly­ing, full of mem­o­ries of hap­pi­ness and fulfillment.

So I visit the places clos­est to the mix of chem­i­cals, wa­ter, earth, air, fire and pres­sure that brewed up life. Places like the moun­tains where life is re­duced to putting one foot in front of the other, find­ing shel­ter from the wind, gaug­ing the limit of your mus­cles, eat­ing, and drink­ing. Alone. With­out thoughts. With­out pre­con­cep­tions or an­swers to any­thing. Some­how I’ve got it into my head that if I can’t ex­plain a damn thing, can’t give a why or where­fore, the steam­roller that is rolling over sec­tions of my life right now, will pass by with lit­tle damage.

Faith in some­thing I guess. A be­lief that I don’t have to take on the whole load by my­self. A del­e­ga­tion of pain and healing.

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Many of these thoughts started from read­ing Kurt’s (and other par­tic­i­pants’) com­ments, from The Cof­fee Su­tras: The “G” Word

Watery Window

August 19, 2003 | Laughing Knees | 4 Comments 

Still life at the edge of the trail, Hakuba, Nagano, Japan 2001.

All spring I had been an­tic­i­pat­ing the ten-​​day break of Au­gust this year, for a chance to es­cape Tokyo and spend a nice long pe­riod walk­ing up along the ridges of the North Alps. My pack was loaded, all the food pre­pared, and the route mapped out. I even went to bed early the night be­fore to make sure that I was fresh for the exertion.

When I woke up the win­dows were quak­ing with the muscling blows of a ty­phoon. I peeked out from be­hind the cur­tains and found the false aca­cia in my tiny gar­den be­ing thrashed to and fro like a wet towel. A muf­fled roar de­scended from the rooftops and broke over the eaves with splashes of whistling. Clouds raced through the sky like scud­ding ships.

Two days this lasted. The news re­ported land­slides through­out the coun­try. The sec­ond morn­ing I walked down to the river near my apart­ment and found the banks over­flow­ing, brown soup slid­ing by just un­der the high wa­ter mark. Flot­sam danced among the ed­dies, shreds of reeds and torn up clods of earth, lone soft drink bot­tles, alu­minum cans, tum­bling, sod­den mag­a­zines, and once a Nike run­ning shoe. I stood on a bridge, lis­ten­ing to the dri­ving rain spat­ter against the stiff ma­te­r­ial of my waxed-​​cotton jacket.

The next day the sun broke through the cloud cover for ex­actly one day, steam­ing up the city like mak­ing crab dumplings, and the pas­sage of wa­ter through all the fis­sures and cracks in the land sounded like a waterfall.

But this lasted only a day. The rain re­turned with­out a thought for all the Toky­oites who had been sav­ing up their money for the va­ca­tion. Mon­day, Tues­day, Wednes­day, Thurs­day, Fri­day, Sat­ur­day, and Sun­day… rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. It was like fill­ing a glass with wa­ter in the sink, turn­ing away, and for­get­ting that the glass was over­flow­ing. My gar­den con­verted into a mos­quito pond. The head high sun­flow­ers lined up at the edge of a small farm plot down near the river be­gan to turn brown from rot. My hik­ing boots put on warm jack­ets of white mold to fight off the chill. In spite of the Au­gust cal­en­dar dates, No­vem­ber was ris­ing in my soul. I took to walk­ing down to the river every af­ter­noon to check the wa­ter level. The tow path had dis­ap­peared. Spot billed ducks, trail­ing their now al­most fully grown chicks, pad­dled vig­or­ously at the sides of the river, peck­ing at bits and pieces of veg­e­ta­tion that floated by. The drum beat of rain­drops tap­ping the shed roof out­side my bed­room win­dow be­came the rhythm of my night’s dozing.

The va­ca­tion has now drawn to a close and the rain has let up, but the urge to throw my back­pack over my shoul­der and take off down the road still in­flates my lungs. It is hard to breathe for the per­sis­tence of walls. The aca­cia in the gar­den has bent over dou­ble from too pro­longed weight of wa­ter and will need cut­ting. Per­haps to­mor­row. I have had no sky over me and my mind still thinks it is evening. The yawns come in waves. And I feel so sleepy.

The Smell of the Sea

August 7, 2003 | Laughing Knees | 2 Comments 

Foghorn on the Sum­burgh Head Light­house, the Shet­lands, Great Britain, 1995.

In the last two weeks three times the air has car­ried the smell of the sea through Tokyo. Tonight was an­other such night. In all my years liv­ing in Tokyo never be­fore have I smelled the am­mo­nia and sea­weed and salt away from the coast. It was like a sub­tle re­minder of where I am, where all peo­ple in Tokyo are, but which is so eas­ily for­got­ten amidst all the con­crete and rush.

Tokyo.. once called “Edo”… was once famed for the va­ri­ety, ex­cel­lence, and fresh­ness of its fish. The best fish was re­ferred to as “Edo-​​mae”, sort of an equiv­a­lent of the Amer­i­can Grade A beef. Dur­ing the Edo Pe­riod the docks and piers and wharfs and land­fills that block the city’s ac­cess to the wa­ter to­day ex­isted only in some dreamer’s mind; many of the wa­ter­ways ex­tended quite far in­land, and the smell of the sea must have been a daily in­gre­di­ent in Edo’s sea breezes.

To add magic to the briny air, I’ve been watch­ing the TV se­ries “Ho­r­a­tio Horn­blower”. As a boy I loved sea­far­ing sto­ries and would de­vour such books as “Two Years Be­fore the Mast”, “Trea­sure Is­land”, and “The Mutiny On the Bounty”. While other kids put to­gether plas­tic rac­ing car and ro­bot mod­els, I took my tweez­ers and rigged the in­tri­cate sails and masts of such tall ships as the Cutty Sark, the Golden Hind, the H.M.S. Bea­gle, and the H.M.S. Bounty. I still dream of one day learn­ing to sail a yacht and cross­ing the Pa­cific. I would love to spend one night out in the mid­dle of the ocean, ly­ing on deck, and watch­ing the stars.

This month “Pi­rates of the Car­ribean” will start. The sea has hoven into my shores this sum­mer. The salt spray is calling.

To All the Trees that I Have Loved

August 3, 2003 | Laughing Knees | 3 Comments 

Tree watch­ing over a dol­men, Fu­nen Is­land, Den­mark, 1988 (I’m not sure what kind of tree this is. I think it’s a beech, but if any­one knows, I’d be grate­ful if you’d in­form me)

This is the fourth in­stall­ment in the on­go­ing on­line es­says se­ries at Eco­tone, this time on the theme “Trees and Place” Please drop by and have a look at what other peo­ple are writ­ing, or pos­si­bly con­tribute your own es­say if you like.

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Love knows no bounds, so the say­ing goes. At times I won­der about the cogs that spin around up­stairs in my at­tic, be­cause most of the emo­tions that have twirled and waltzed me around to that in­de­scrib­able mu­sic seemed sourced to some trans­mit­ter on an­other planet, com­pletely dis­con­nected to any wires in my own lit­tle con­trol panel. I’ve had my share of re­la­tion­ships with women and each time some tug­ging force man­i­fested it­self with­out my say so. Each of the women were dif­fer­ent in so many ways, and each went their own way with ves­tiges of won­der, joy, and sad­ness. With­out hav­ing known each of these women, the steps that I have taken so far through my life would have left me that much fur­ther be­hind in my un­steady progress across the step­ping stones in the river. Men have, of course, played sig­nif­i­cant roles in the drama, but none with the in­ti­macy and in­ten­sity of what I have known with women, to whom I have both com­pletely opened the gates, while at other times let­ting out the mon­ster. Love has turned me in­side out, lifted me to where no man had gone be­fore, and dragged me kick­ing into the open.

So it has been with trees, too. Per­haps it is their seem­ing im­move­abil­ity, their ten­dency to be there when you get back. When you look up, there they are. They can usu­ally be counted on to take you as you are, with­out com­ment, and to lis­ten with­out prej­u­dice. And un­like so many friends, per­haps, their sta­tion­ary na­ture pro­vides a pil­low against time, some­how cre­at­ing the il­lu­sion that noth­ing changes and that you can rest easy in their in­fal­li­ble de­vo­tion to one place. They are the friends that pre­serve the sub­stance of mem­o­ries when you re­turn home.

The first tree that arises in my own mem­o­ries was a ven­er­a­ble old Weep­ing Wil­low that stood in the back yard of the Park­way Vil­lage hous­ing com­plex in New York, back in the 1960’s. It was a craggy old stick with crooked branches and a wide gash in its ab­domen where mud dauber wasps found refuge. The long strings of its leaves cas­caded from the scant branches that clawed at the sky and swayed in the wind. A grey squir­rel resided in a crook in its cra­nium, dash­ing out along the limbs to chat­ter at me as I sat play­ing among the roots, or tightrop­ing out to the ends of the branches when I clam­bored among the boughs. For four sum­mers that tree and I grew to­gether, and when my fam­ily moved to a new apart­ment that looked right out at the back­yard, I would greet the Wil­low every morn­ing from my bed­room window.

Then, in the win­ter of 1968, a great bliz­zard hit, turn­ing the night blue and the wind scream­ing across the win­dow panes. In the mid­dle of the night a great crack woke me and when I ran to the win­dow I wit­nessed, through the in­dis­tinct blurr of snow and dark­ness, the great form of the Wil­low ly­ing prone in the yard. I cried that night and still grieve for the loss of a great friend.

My fam­ily moved to Japan the fol­low­ing year. New trees that I had never seen be­fore stood watch­ing as I took my first ten­ta­tive steps in the new coun­try. Among them I dis­cov­ered new crea­tures and fresh ad­ven­tures and as I grew the vi­sions that they evoked seeped into my mak­ing. One par­tic­u­lar tree, a Cam­phor Tree, five sto­ries tall and just as wide, with a trunk as wide as a Volk­swa­gen, stood be­hind my ju­nior high school build­ing. It was a place few stu­dents ven­tured and where I loved to re­treat to when I wanted to be alone. One af­ter­noon I was read­ing a book at the Camphor’s base, when three boys, Pe­ter from Aus­tralia, Mar­cel from South Africa, and David from Amer­ica, found me there. There was lit­tle talk. They were big and strong and thor­ough. Af­ter­wards I lay sob­bing be­tween two huge roots, blood from my nose spilling across the wrin­kled bark. I lay there un­til night fell, clutch­ing the great round­ness of the tree.

Af­ter high school I moved alone to Ore­gon, on the west coast of the United States. In all the ten years that I lived there, no sin­gle tree stands out. Rather it was like walk­ing into some grand ban­quet hall of gi­ants, 30 me­ter tall Ti­tans, the Dou­glas Fir, stand­ing at at­ten­tion at every cor­ner and every open space. The moun­tains were cov­ered by them. The uni­ver­sity cam­pus ran like a green car­pet un­der their legs. When I looked up at their faces their eyes were far away, as if con­tem­plat­ing the sea to the west. They never looked down. And so for ten years I scut­tled among these mighty sen­tinels, get­ting smaller with each day. When I left Ore­gon I was no more than a mouse, but my eyes had learned to con­sider the hori­zons, and the dis­tant clouds, and the wind.

Boston was my next stop. Af­ter Ore­gon it seemed as if walls had closed in. The com­pany of trees dwin­dled to what the verges al­lowed, but I was grate­ful for the Plane Trees around Har­vard. And one sunny spring day I stared amazed dur­ing my first en­counter with a weep­ing tree, a Sugar Maple leak­ing sap with the first warm spell of the year, a deliri­ous joy at the re­treat of the cold of the north­ern winter.

I had found a woman I loved in Boston, but could not love Boston it­self and I felt I had to leave. So I for­sook what I had started there and re­turned to Japan. The dis­tance was great. The tele­phone bills ate half my pay­checks. The one who was wait­ing for me couldn’t bear the strain and left. In my sor­row I took to the moun­tains around the small town at the foot of Mt. Fuji, every week­end walk­ing far­ther and harder, till my feet ached and I would sing Bea­t­les’ songs at the top of my lungs as I de­scended in the evenings. On one small and al­most un­no­ticed moun­tain that pitched it­self right at the knees of Mt. Fuji and com­manded a wide per­spec­tive of the en­tire waist­line of the great vol­cano, stood four ag­ing Japan­ese Cedars. They re­minded me of my beloved Dou­glas Firs in Ore­gon, stand­ing in the same re­gal straight­ness and also look­ing away over my head. Many af­ter­noons I fell asleep at their feet, bees buzzing in the grass and crows caw­ing in the dis­tance. One time I de­cided to camp there and I sat all night lis­ten­ing to Racoon-​​Dogs, Red Foxes, and Sika Deer shuf­fling amidst the un­der­brush. The fol­low­ing morn­ing I stood naked be­side one Cedar trunk, watch­ing mist ris­ing from the val­ley, as Mt. Fuji rose like a golden queen in the ris­ing sun.

And so the cir­cle made a full turn. Tokyo is my home again. The trees that I have loved still stand be­hind me along the long road, and I won­der if they will be there if I were to re­turn to give them my re­gards. Tokyo is cut­ting down much of its tree kin. It is a lucky gift if you can open your win­dow and hear the leaves sigh­ing. And in that per­haps I am lucky. For, out­side my win­dow, for the past three years, I am able to rest my eyes upon a big chested Mag­no­lia Tree. In spring she bursts her corset and waves at the sky with a thou­sand white gloves. The first bird of the dawn, the Brown-​​eared Bul­bul, her­alds the light with his pic­colo screech, from atop the high­est branches. And in strong winds, such as the big blow ear­lier to­day, all the fat leaves turn up in prayer, ask­ing only for an­other day. Just an­other day. I watch and smile and nod in agreement.