Mountain Big, Person Small

June 23, 2005 | Laughing Knees | 25 Comments 

View of Mt. Oku-​​Shirane af­ter the ini­tial climb.

Climber cel­e­brat­ing at the top of one of Mt. Oku-Shirane’s crags.

Vine climb­ing a cedar trunk.

View of Lake Yu from west­ern shore.

The morn­ing I started out of the house for a two-​​day climb of Mt. Oku-​​Shirane, in the hin­ter­land of the area of Nikko, north­west of Tokyo, trep­i­da­tion must have been my main state of mind. There was the em­bar­rass­ment of my belly push­ing some­what over the re­straint of my back­pack hip belt and the mat­ter of my breath, or rather the lack thereof. I won­dered whether my knees might buckle up along the alpine trails and whether I might find pur­chase of my lungs in the rar­i­fied air. More than that, though, was the con­cern about the early sum­mer weather and ter­rain con­di­tions so high up. At the end of May two me­ters of snow had still blocked ac­cess to the trails and it was pos­si­ble that some ar­eas would still be too dan­ger­ous to at­tempt. I packed away my cram­pons just in case and an ex­tra layer of in­su­la­tion for pos­si­ble frigid nights, and de­cided to see what I would see.

The trep­i­da­tion must have played havoc with my sleep be­cause I don’t re­mem­ber get­ting any. Yawn­ing my way through the rush hour crowds, I stood horse-​​like in the train and made my way around the edge of cen­tral Tokyo to Asakusa, where I changed tick­ets and boarded the ex­press for Nikko. Rain threat­ened the views from the win­dows, the grim con­crete morass of east­ern Tokyo clack­et­ting by amidst grey rivers and low­er­ing clouds. The pas­sage gave me time to re­view my op­tions, and with the grad­ual green­ing of the land­scape out­side the ex­cite­ment of re­turn­ing to the moun­tains built up into a kind of heady song. I couldn’t stop smiling.

Clouds had lifted to a safe dis­tance by the time the train pulled into Tobu-​​Nikko sta­tion. Us­ing the dis­count af­forded by hav­ing pur­chased the all-​​inclusive Nikko Mini Free Pass, I boarded the bus headed up into the alpine marsh­land of Yu­moto Hot Springs and Senjo Marsh, an area that I had vis­ited many times, in­clud­ing in win­ter when the fields and forests are buried in snow. The bus skirted the edge of big Lake Chuzenji and then wound up the zig-​​zag road into the clouds, though them, and up above, where snatches of sun­light broke through. The trees trans­formed from the heavy beeches of the low­lands into white birches, larches, and rowans. All the greens in the trees glowed with the bright green of Spring and the light sur­round­ing the bus shim­mered with newness.

Pas­sen­gers trick­led off the bus as it en­tered Senjo Marsh un­til, ar­riv­ing in Yu­moto Hot Springs, there was no one else on the bus. Cool, moun­tain air greeted me as I stepped down onto the as­phalt. Few peo­ple were about, prob­a­bly most of them re­lax­ing in the many hot spring ho­tels nes­tled amidst the trees and lanes. I headed straight for the campground.

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Ridge flank­ing the north­ern sad­dle of Mt. Oku-​​Shirane

Cairn atop Mt. Oku-​​Shirane. Oku-​​Shirane is an an­cient vol­cano with loose moraine and rot­ten rock that pulls out eas­ily and has col­lapsed, to re­veal huge gaps in the peak, drop­ping away to dark precipices.

Mem­bers of a uni­ver­sity hik­ing club, wear­ing their uni­forms and singing atop a crag.

Rushes along the top of the wa­ter­fall drop­ping down into Senjo Marsh

It was noon by the time the tent was set up and still a whole af­ter­noon ahead of me be­fore I had to set­tle in for the night. Gath­er­ing a rain jacket, some food, and a cam­era, I headed for a stroll around Lake Yu and fur­ther on down the moun­tain to Senjo Marsh. The edge of the Lake Yu bus­tled with fish­er­man rent­ing boats to cast for stocked rain­bow trout and with tourists up for the week­end. The over­cast light ren­dered the col­ors of the scenery sub­dued and pale, and a hush ab­sorbed all sounds but those of war­blers in the un­der­brush, the shrill keen of a black kite, and chil­dren run­ning along the lake­side trail. The walk pro­gressed slowly and de­lib­er­ately, with time to stop and look closely at things, leaves and roots and gulp­ing trout.

And for a time the whole world sub­mit­ted to the thun­der of a wa­ter­fall, white tresses tum­bling down a tilted ta­ble of rock. I started from the top and swung my legs on down to the chill wind of its base, where fly fish­er­men waded in the roil­ing wa­ter, del­i­cately teas­ing the pools. Words seemed to be drowned out in the great white noise and I passed on through in awe, like a man walk­ing in a dream. I love wa­ter­falls, but I al­ways find my­self glad to dis­tance my­self from them, back to the quiet of the woods, where my thoughts float clearly and with my own approval.

The trail shot through the larch woods, many of them wrapped in wire mesh to keep the over­pop­u­lated shika deer from strip­ping the saplings away. The slope flat­tened out and af­ter criss­cross­ing the river with a se­ries of wooden bridges, pass­ing events of wa­ter­falls and gur­gling streams and newly emerged skunk cab­bage un­curl­ing from the duff. When it be­came ap­par­ent that my loi­ter­ing would make it dif­fi­cult to get back to the camp­site if I missed the bus at the end of the trail, I hur­ried along the plank walk­way out into the open ex­panse of Senjo Marsh, and rushed by the dry reeds and white birches with­out stop­ping to look at any­thing. Evening was set­tling over the moun­tains. To the west the rounded hump of Mt. Nan­tai rose like a huge shadow amidst the clouds. And to the other side rose Mt. Oku-​​Shirane, the des­ti­na­tion tomorrow.

The bus ap­peared out of the gloom af­ter a half hour of sit­ting along the edge of the road. With no peo­ple around and the trees still as sen­tinels, for a time it seemed as if the mod­ern world had re­treated. With the bus came a box of lights, snuff­ing and hiss­ing through the wilder­ness, and the glass keep­ing the night at bay. In fif­teen min­utes I was whisked back the way that had taken me four hours to walk and de­posited in an as­phalt square sur­rounded by flu­o­res­cent lampposts.

To­mor­row would be­gin very early, just at dawn. Time to re­tire. I headed back to the camp­site. A num­ber of other tents had been set up since ear­lier in the day, but all were dark and silent. The grass was wet with dew and slid heav­ily across my boot tops as I kicked through it. I po­si­tioned my­self at my tent en­trance, lit my stove, and con­jured up a pack­age of keema curry with pi­laf and a cup of tom yam kun soup. My belly round with spices and warmth, I lay back in the sleep­ing bag and lis­tened to the wind on the ridges. A shika deer barked from the woods and then all was quiet. The moon glowed through the tent wall, blush­ing. I closed my eyes.

---

Part of the throngs of hik­ers who crowded the sum­mit of Mt. Oku-​​Shirane. I won­dered some­times if peo­ple were play­ing mu­si­cal chairs with the avail­able rocks to sit on!

Lunch does seem bet­ter when you’re on top of the world, look­ing down.

Japan­ese are crazy about fish­ing. Some rivers are so packed with week­end fish­er­man that the fish have no hope of ne­go­ti­at­ing the gauntlets. In the book­stores the fish­ing mag­a­zines out­num­ber out­door mag­a­zines some­thing like ten-​​to-​​one.

This old war­rior sat atop his launch chair bark­ing out loud com­ments on each and every per­son on the lake. Even the fish gen­u­flected to his commands!

One thing about sleep­ing in a tent is that there is only a mil­lime­ter or less of film be­tween you and the full com­ple­ment of the world all around you, not least of which is the open sky above. Wak­ing in the mid­dle of the night I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I slipped out of the tent and wan­dered in the dark up to the back of the camp­site, close to the trail­head, kneel­ing down in the grass to run my hands through the dew-​​laden grass and gaze up at the moon rid­ing the clouds. An in­sis­tent wind blew down off the ridges and sighed through the trees. It was warmer than I had an­tic­i­pated, so my ini­tial wor­ries about a cold night soon dis­si­pated. All the other tents hud­dled silent and, watch­ing them, I could al­most imag­ine the in­hab­i­tants’ dreams swirling about the domes. My in­som­nia prob­lem might make for a day of suf­fer­ing later, but for now it al­lowed me to keep watch over the tribe.

I man­aged a few hours of fit­ful sleep be­fore the alarm jarred me awake. It was just get­ting light and war­blers were flut­ing in the for­est while cuckoo birds sent echoes through the val­ley. I poked my head out the door and lay my eyes upon mist ris­ing from the low­land floor and pool­ing over the lake be­low. Ea­ger to get an early start I packed the es­sen­tials for the day and left the rest in a bag at the foot of the tent. Every­thing ready, I squat­ted at the en­trance and put on a pot of wa­ter to boil for tea while munch­ing on a bowl of muesli with pow­dered milk. I sa­vored the crunch of peanuts with the soft give of raisins and drained the bowl of every last drop of milk.

The Japan­ese rural ar­eas are go­ing through an eco­nomic de­pres­sion that is drain­ing them of the younger gen­er­a­tion. It is so bad in some ar­eas that the lo­cal gov­ern­ments are of­fer­ing in­cen­tives like free land and free houses in or­der to en­tice the young to re­turn. A lot of the prob­lems stem from a sin­gu­lar lack of imag­i­na­tion in tak­ing ad­van­tage of what the rural ar­eas have to of­fer. If you pe­ruse the coun­try liv­ing mag­a­zines in the city book­stores, just about the only types of sug­ges­tions to make a liv­ing that they ever of­fer are: “pen­sion” owner (pen­sion as in the main­land Eu­ro­pean types of bed and break­fasts), farmer, pot­ter, or wooden toy maker… all rather lim­ited in sur­vival sta­tis­tics and not very ap­peal­ing to most young peo­ple. And it isn’t helped by a stub­born con­ser­vatism among the el­derly that pre­vents chang­ing any of the tra­di­tional ways of do­ing things. The young want only to live in the cities and al­most none of them ever want to re­turn to their birth­places. Those young who grew up in the cities can­not dis­cern any good rea­son to live in the countryside.

The re­sult to a hiker of this dy­ing away of the rural com­mu­ni­ties means that the buses which used to carry me up to al­most any ob­scure cor­ner of the coun­try have slowly be­gun to dis­ap­pear. With more and more peo­ple dri­ving cars there sim­ply is no eco­nomic sense in con­tin­u­ing to run the buses. How­ever, for some­one like me with no car this means re­ly­ing on taxis to get me to the trail­heads. Two years ago, when I tried to get up to the very pop­u­lar route over Ki­tadake (North Peak), the sec­ond high­est peak in Japan, I was told that the road had washed out from a huge mud­slide. While I de­bated what to do a taxi dri­ver ap­proached me and of­fered an al­ter­na­tive route… at a cost Â¥25,000 ($240) one way! Needless-​​to-​​say I gave up on that trip.

But the dilemma re­peated it­self here in Nikko. Last evening, with con­sid­er­able hem­ming and haw­ing on the part of the area’s in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer, I man­aged to se­cure a taxi ride up to the north side of Mt. Oku-​​Shirane. It would be wait­ing for me at 6:00 right where the bus had left me off yesterday.

I put the cook­ing gear away and hefted my rather light pack and made my way over to the taxi. The taxi dri­ver stood wait­ing be­side the car, pick­ing his teeth with a tooth­pick. He de­posited the pack in the trunk and be­gan a non­stop so­lil­o­quy about the dif­fi­culty of se­cur­ing a taxi and the dif­fer­ent at­tempts that peo­ple had taken in get­ting out to the dif­fer­ent sides of Oku-​​Shirane. He also re­lated hor­ror sto­ries of the snow atop the moun­tain, at one point stat­ing that it had reached over 3 me­ters deep just a month ago.

He de­posited me and my pack at the trail­head where quite a few bus­loads and car­loads of ear­lier hik­ers had al­ready made their way. He also at­tempted to talk me into or­der­ing an­other taxi for the re­turn trip, but since I in­tended to pos­si­bly take the south­east­ern trail back down di­rectly to the camp­site, I de­clined. He whipped out an al­bum of pho­tos taken of the top of the moun­tain cov­ered in huge drifts of snow, but a mo­ment later fur­ther stated that he had never climbed the moun­tain. I re­al­ized that most likely one of the hik­ers he had be­friended had given him the pho­tos, but at the same time knew that I couldn’t rely on him to pro­vide trust­wor­thy in­for­ma­tion on the moun­tain. So, say­ing good bye, I left him be­hind with his taxi and started up the rocky trail.

It was steep go­ing from the first but not at all as stren­u­ous as I thought it would be. The ini­tial trail in­volved scram­bling up rocks and slip­ping be­tween boul­ders. The for­est grad­u­ally dropped away ris­ing more and more into krummholz zone, the trees grow­ing shorter and more bent with wind. I took a break on an out­crop­ping that looked back down the trail and, while quaffing wa­ter, watched mostly el­derly walk­ers huff­ing and puff­ing their way up the slope. Many of them car­ried heavy tripods and packs laden with cam­era equip­ment. I fid­dled with my own new Nikon D70s and felt slightly un­com­fort­able with its size and weight. But the pic­tures kept pop­ping up in my head and so I was grate­ful for the abil­ity of the cam­era to be left on with­out drain­ing the bat­ter­ies and for the in­stant shut­ter re­sponse when­ever a com­po­si­tion formed in my eye. I could never have done that with my lighter and more com­pact Nikon 5400, also quite an im­pres­sive camera.

It was still only 7:30 by the time I reached the flat tarn area that formed the start of the real climb up Oku-​​Shirane. The wa­ter was blue-​​green and clear right down to the logs at the bot­tom. Wa­ter strid­ers and whirligigs flirted with the glit­ter­ing sun­light on the sur­face and a few drag­on­flies flit­ted about among the reeds at the shore­line. The trail switched into plank mode and led straight to a sad­dle from which the steep­est part of the climb lost it­self amidst a slanted field of boulders.

Mt. Oku-​​Shirane stood tow­er­ing over the scene like some long for­got­ten lord, a hoary old geezer of a moun­tain com­plete with scrag­gly beard and a bald­ing pâté. The rock car­ried the mem­ory of a fiery past when this whole val­ley must have formed the bot­tom of some huge cal­dron of sul­fur and hot rock. And in ages past there must have been a mon­u­men­tal ex­plo­sion, blast­ing the earth away un­til the moun­tain it­self had col­lapsed into ruin.

A sub­lime ruin, though. I strolled past the tarn, all the time spell­bound by the blue sky and that great mound of rock. Not a cloud in the sky, and the sun al­ready bak­ing my skin. A big grin break­ing the win­ter rigid­ity of my face, I started up the trail to­wards the sum­mit. All my months of worry fell away and the sheer ex­hil­a­ra­tion of de­fy­ing grav­ity with the surety of my boots and the sound of scree giv­ing way re­minded me of what had got me lov­ing moun­tains in first place so many years ago.

---

Lake Yu in the gath­er­ing evening light

Blos­soms and new leaves along the Lake Yu trail

Aza­lea burst­ing with color on a grey afternoon.

Krummholz halfway up Mt. Oku-​​Shirane.

Here is where the ef­fects of sit­ting in front of the com­puter and bad con­trol of my di­a­betes be­gan to kick in. The thin­ner air al­ready made breath­ing more la­bored and with the ap­pre­hen­sion of hy­po­glycemia (low blood sugar) con­stantly buzzing at the back of my mind, I also be­gan to hy­per­ven­ti­late a lit­tle. Light-​​headed and slightly dizzy I watched my­self care­fully while plac­ing one foot in front of the other. I had to pause at in­ter­vals, to take deep breaths and still my pound­ing heart. When the first signs of hy­po­glycemia wrig­gled their way into my arms and legs, caus­ing slight shak­ing and an un­will­ing­ness of my limbs to do as they were told, I had to take a break. I low­ered my pack and sat on a rock look­ing over the tarn val­ley, across to the other ridge of Mt. Mae-​​Shirane, the smaller sis­ter of Mt. Oku-​​Shirane. From where I sat I could make out the scrape of gray moraine along the ridge, where three years ago I nearly died from hy­po­glycemia, and just barely man­aged to scrape to­gether enough food to raise my blood sugar enough to make it down the moun­tain to a restau­rant. The mem­ory of that ter­ri­fy­ing af­ter­noon fol­lowed me up this trail and stirred up chills in my spine as I sat here wit­ness­ing the very spot where it had occurred.

Re­ju­ve­nated from some di­ges­tive bis­cuits and can­died beans I started up the trail again. Rocks now closed around me, huge, tor­tured boul­ders like the base of some cas­tle wall. The trail dipped in and out of sight, ris­ing and falling amidst the dark rock fall­out, and from where I bal­anced on the slope it seemed at times as if there could be no path up. At one junc­tion the path switched back upon it­self with­out hint of do­ing so and it seemed as if I would have to clam­ber up a steep gully choked with boul­ders. I found the trail just when I be­gan to won­der where the el­derly women ahead of me had dis­ap­peared to.

Snort­ing and puff­ing up over a giant’s stair­case, I hauled my­self to the top of the ridge and sud­denly stood over­look­ing the op­po­site side: a drop of about eight hun­dred me­ters, omi­nous black precipices falling away into a windy maw of bro­ken ram­parts. A splin­tered spire rose out the mid­dle of it like a stone spear and cut the wind in two, so that a low moan rose out of the depths, as if some huge per­son lay far be­low, in agony. Sick­les of swifts whipped through the wind, play­ing like chil­dren and their sharp wings whoosh­ing as they darted past my ears. When they sang, it sounded like African fin­ger harps played in rapid suc­ces­sion. My eyes fol­lowed them through their ma­neu­vers, so fast that my head spun around keep­ing track. I had to break off as ver­tigo hit and threat­ened to make me lose my foot­ing on the ledge.

The sum­mit waited just a few scram­bles far­ther on, cross­ing a wide-​​open ridge, drop­ping into a ravine through which the wind bar­reled, and back up to a tower of un­tidy out­crop­pings, and around the op­po­site side to a tiny point of a crag, upon which hordes of early hik­ers had al­ready as­cended, gath­ered like flocks of un­ruly birds. Group af­ter group edged their way around the ledges to the sum­mit sign post where they bal­anced on the slip­pery boul­der and posed for pho­tographs. From this van­tage point I could see in all di­rec­tions, the moun­tains of Nikko and Oze and the Tani­gawa range be­yond all rolling away to­ward the hori­zon. One of the groups of peo­ple, a uni­ver­sity hik­ing club from lo­cal Ut­sunomiya, all wear­ing a red shirt for the club uni­form, gath­ered at the edge of one out­crop­ping and stood un­der the sun singing for all to hear. Such crowds would nor­mally have ir­ri­tated me on a moun­tain climb, but to­day the mountain’s huge­ness and the grandiose ges­ture of the wind sub­dued the puny ef­forts of us hu­mans and the joy we let out as a species seemed oddly sad and brave at the same time. For these mo­ments it was great to be hu­man and to revel in those mo­ments of our lit­tle triumphs.

Emerg­ing from the back­side of Mt. Oku-​​Shirane, the earth fell away and looked upon crags such as this

Every­one up here stopped to sit, eat their lunches, and slowly gaze about.

Birch just be­gin­ning to bud and put out leaves, af­ter a par­tic­u­larly long winter.

Skunk cab­bage putting out its first new leaves along the marsh bor­ders and wet shadow ravines.

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On the wind­ward side of the peak I sat back against a boul­der and made lunch. Lunch in the moun­tains in Japan in­evitably con­sists of one kind of curry or an­other, that be­ing the prepack­aged meal of choice in the stores. Thai cur­ries, In­done­sian cur­ries, In­dian cur­ries, Japan­ese cur­ries, Eng­lish cur­ries, and here I was boil­ing a pack­age of Sri Lankan curry poured into a pack­age of par­boiled mush­room rice.

The sun had re­ally let loose this late morn­ing, hot enough to make me take off my hat and wipe the sweat away. Swig­ging cold wa­ter from my wa­ter bot­tle I watched an army of about 30 el­derly walk­ers set­tle amidst the rocks just off the trail. They set their packs down, and, dressed in a patch­work of brightly col­ored, ex­pen­sive out­door gear, clomped off to snap group pic­tures by the sum­mit marker. A lone woman, prob­a­bly in her six­ties or pos­si­bly sev­en­ties, stayed be­hind, sit­ting on a rock, fac­ing the wind. She opened her white blouse and closed her eyes as the wind bil­lowed the fab­ric out be­hind her. From the snatches of in­struc­tions given by the leader be­fore they took off to the sum­mit this group con­sisted mainly of peo­ple who were climb­ing for the first time. I won­dered what the woman was think­ing, how she felt. A brief smile passed over her lips and I thought, “Per­haps she’s the only one in the group who would re­ally re­mem­ber this place.”

The breeze felt good, that’s for sure. The curry still burn­ing my lips, I, too, closed my eyes and for a while felt the moun­tain move be­neath me, while the clouds that had been steadily gath­er­ing since reach­ing the top passed cool hands over my brow.

I gazed at my boots, noted the scuff marks on their toes, gar­nered from over eight years of wan­der­ing. Over the 32 years I’ve been walk­ing moun­tains I’ve gone through about eight pairs of boots and more sneak­ers than I can re­count. Af­ter you’ve used one pair for a while they be­come like old friends, with old mem­o­ries etched into the cuts and scrapes. These are the tools that keep you steady on the climbs and give you faith when plac­ing your feet on the loose scree of hairy de­scents. In re­cent years I’ve be­gun fa­vor­ing light walk­ing shoes over clunky leather boots, but old boots curry a fond­ness that the quickly shred­ded light shoes just can­not match. I still love dip­ping my fin­ger in the spe­cial cam­phor grease made by Lim­mer Boots and rub­bing the paste into the leather, feel­ing the grease melt in the warmth of my fin­ger tips and the grit lodged per­ma­nently in the leather. I love coat­ing the whole boot un­til it is glis­ten­ing and soft, the leather dark from years of ap­pli­ca­tions. And then, twelve hours later, tak­ing a brush to the sur­face to buff it into a lus­ter that keeps wa­ter bead­ing off for quite a few days of dash­ing through pud­dles and mud. With the throw away at­ti­tude of out­door equip­ment these days that old love of equip­ment that lasts for decades had faded away like black and white photography.

A dark cloud rose from the void, fling­ing short flur­ries of rain­drops. I packed away my stove and swung my pack back on. The gravel crunched be­neath my soles and I started off on the first de­scent of the day.

A view of Mitaga tarn and the top of the ini­tial climb

El­derly woman sit­ting and re­lax­ing the cool breeze while other mem­bers of her group ex­plore other places

Roots of a red pine

Fear­less Shika deer pass­ing along the shore of Goshiki tarn.

---

The south­east­ern side of the moun­tain was de­void of trees. The soil was a beige, grav­elly tuff, like lit­tle mar­bles that slid from un­der your boots as you stepped along the steep in­cline, mak­ing from some hackle-​​raising sec­tions. The swifts loved this side of the moun­tain for some rea­son and they winged about in aer­ial scuf­fles, con­stantly chit­ter­ing at one an­other. An un­end­ing stream of group walk­ers, some thirty mem­bers or more long, as­cended from the tarn be­low, giv­ing me a flow of rea­sons to stop and look about, but also re­quir­ing me to ut­ter, like a loop­ing mes­sage, greet­ing af­ter greet­ing un­til the sin­cer­ity in the hel­los no longer held any weight. The stop­ping to let these groups pass was merely a mi­nor an­noy­ance, though, noth­ing to get an­gry about. The peo­ple were nearly al­ways cheer­ful and friendly, quite a nice change from the sullen, avoiding-one-another’s-eyes anonymity of Tokyo. And it was just nice to see so many peo­ple do­ing what I love so much to do; some­thing I wanted more peo­ple to get out and appreciate.

The heavy clouds bal­looned into thun­der­heads that threat­ened rain. The wind picked up, buf­fet­ing me as I zigzagged down the slope, boots step­ping from the top of one rock to the next. Though they are hard on the knees such open-​​faced scram­bling made for some of the best moun­tain walk­ing, with the con­tour of the moun­tain slant­ing against the sky and the land­ing of the for­est vis­i­ble far be­low. There was some­thing in­de­scrib­ably mov­ing about hear­ing the wind softly punch your ears as a huge cloud came silently pour­ing over the lip of a ridge. Or to wit­ness the slow pas­sage of the open-​​winged back of a hawk far be­low above the tree­tops. It was for a mo­ment like in­hab­it­ing the halls of the gods, look­ing down upon creation.

Legs took me down to re­al­ity in rigid-​​kneed re­straint, though part of me wanted to just let loose and belt down the trail like a ban­shee. I was sur­prised by how smoothly I was able to main­tain the pace and that the knack for ne­go­ti­at­ing the in­cline by tak­ing care to stay atop the rocks rather than plac­ing my feet in the scree be­tween hadn’t been lost. Un­like other sports where de­vel­op­ing the phys­i­cal co­or­di­na­tion and tech­niques to ac­com­plish spe­cific tasks would be con­sid­ered nec­es­sary in or­der to mas­ter the sport, for some rea­son most hik­ers ei­ther stum­ble upon how to walk in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions or else bull­doze their way among the rocks and roots and mud, with­out tak­ing a mo­ment to think things through. And yet it makes a big dif­fer­ence when you take care to walk with smaller steps or to keep your cen­ter of bal­ance back, like in ski­ing, or to think of the path be­neath you like a set of stairs. Uti­liz­ing tech­niques can make for a much safer and en­joy­able walk.

Scrag­gly birches rose from the earth near the bot­tom of the slope and gath­ered in dense thick­ets within the gul­lies. The last of the win­ter snow, crusty and grey­ing with de­bris, clung to the shaded ar­eas and I had to kick in my heels to main­tain bal­ance. A party of boy scouts, led by a chubby man car­ry­ing en­tirely too much para­pher­na­lia all clink­ing and swing­ing and clank­ing around his body and back­pack, kept call­ing back, in a boom­ing voice that car­ried through the val­ley, in­struc­tions to the boys on how to ne­go­ti­ate the snow fields and place feet amidst roots. I couldn’t help but feel that he was eye­ing me the whole time, though, be­cause each time I reached a new sec­tion with a new chal­lenge he would fall silent un­til I com­pleted the moves. It was like trail­ing my own mo­bile in­ter­com sys­tem, the bull­horn, in a shrill Doppler Ef­fect with some slight de­lay, di­rect­ing a hap­less pack of boys in some di­a­bol­i­cal ver­sion of Si­mon Says. I glanced back at the stum­bling, slip­ping, slid­ing, gri­mac­ing boys be­hind him, and won­dered if they would look back on this trip with plea­sure. Some­how I doubted it.

The trail passed through a dark ravine and then passed into the flat bot­tomed vale of Goshiki tarn. Moun­tain cherry blos­soms bloomed on both sides of the trail, their rose-​​tinted blos­soms paint­ing a blush of pink over the grey-​​green tan­gle of birches and rowan that filled the bowl of the val­ley. Here and there, in a cu­ri­ous hush small groups of hik­ers sat in cir­cles, eat­ing lunch. In front of them spread the blue-​​green disk of the tarn, the sur­face so still the ed­dies of tiny fish broke the mir­ror of the sky. A flat boul­der sat next to the tarn’s edge and here I set my pack down to take a short break.

Be­gin­ning the descent.

Stand­ing be­fore Yu Falls.

Tak­ing time to just look.

While watch­ing this old man step be­tween boats and then open­ing the scup­pers I had to grip the sides of my chair, hop­ing he would be all right!

---

The tarn har­bored no sounds. It lay as still as a pane of glass and seemed to hold its breath. It was al­most as if the sur­round­ing moun­tain gods sat in stern watch and the god of the tarn furtively looked back, its eyes peer­ing up through re­flec­tions of clouds pass­ing across the sur­face. I felt my heart shrink in my chest, pulling back.

From the tarn there was sup­posed to be a side trail that would take me up to Mt. Oku-Shirane’s sis­ter peak, Mt. Mae-​​Shirane. I con­sulted the map and ran my eyes along the shore­line of the tarn to the gully that led up to the ridge. Sud­denly from be­hind me a flow of move­ment dis­turbed the still­ness and when I turned to look four deer glided along the west­ern shore of the tarn, noise­less. They looked jit­tery, their eyes wide as they eyed the peo­ple sit­ting eat­ing lunch. Every now and then one of them would start and prance a few steps for­ward. As I watched I couldn’t help but feel how much a part of this place they were, their brown coats blend­ing in so well with the sur­round­ing veg­e­ta­tion that they were hard to make out. Only their bright white tails flashed across the dis­tance be­tween us. They slowly made they way to the thickly wooded cover of the south, where they dis­ap­peared in the un­der­growth, prob­a­bly seek­ing ten­der young shoots and buds.

I took the shore trail and fol­lowed it around to the side trail. I stooped be­side the tarn and dipped my hands into the wa­ter, ex­pect­ing the shock to be ice cold. But it was luke­warm, and clear as crys­tal. I brought the hand­ful up to my face, splashed some of the sweat away, and soaked my hair. Af­ter the hot work of the past few hours it felt good to feel my skin cool with the evaporation.

Just as I was start­ing up the side trail a man car­ry­ing two wa­ter bot­tles con­densed with droplets on the out­side from the cold of the fresh wa­ter in­side, and a woman be­hind him also car­ry­ing a freshly filled wa­ter bot­tle stopped and asked if I was in­tend­ing to head up to trail above. when I an­swered yes, he told me that this trail would only take me as far as the wa­ter source just at the top of the rock slide. be­yond that there was no trail. Thank­ing him, I set my pack down and scram­bled up the rocks to the wa­ter source and dis­cov­ered that the man was right… the ter­rain be­yond closed in like a cur­tain of brush, thick tan­gles of branches and trunks, and moss-​​covered boul­ders every­where. No trail­blaz­ers marked any pos­si­ble di­rec­tion to go. It was hard to imag­ine why the map in­di­cated that this could be a way up.

I kneeled to fill my wa­ter bot­tle with the ice-​​cold wa­ter. I took a deep drink and then filled the wa­ter bot­tle again. I headed back down the trail, picked up my pack, and headed back up the way I had come down ear­lier, to take an­other side trail up to Mt. Mae-​​Shirane.

The wind blew steadily now and rain couldn’t make its mind up whether to stay or go. The crowds of walk­ers dis­ap­peared and the for­est opened up with widely spaced birches that let in a lot of light. The path climbed up to the ridge and the trees fell away. Ice fields still patched the hol­lows and their cold ra­di­a­tion met the glare of the af­ter­noon sun stir­ring up a glow­ing mist that seemed to blur the at­mos­phere all around. It was so hard to see that I had to squint to make out the path ahead, but it also ren­dered the trees and the out­lines of the slopes into a dream­like world right out of my imag­i­na­tion. Wa­ter strid­ers slug­gishly stroked the sur­face of the frigid pools at the bases of the ice fields, while all around thou­sands of trick­les and drips of wa­ter falling from lips of ice tin­kled upon the pool sur­faces. Ferns and tiger lilies added bright green to the glow un­til noth­ing seemed real. The sun seemed to glow from be­hind a frosted window.

The path reached a pass where sud­denly the wind picked up again and the mist cleared away. Big cedars and larches stood straight down on the slope be­low, pro­tected from pre­vail­ing winds. And far­ther down still the great for­est, dark and engulfing.

I fol­lowed the open ridge that I had walked three years ear­lier, land­marks jog­ging mem­o­ries. It was if I passed the haunts of just barely vis­i­ble deities, guard­ing their nooks and cran­nies, and I ac­knowl­edged them with a nod or recog­ni­tion as I walked by. I stopped at one point up the slope and turned to look back. The ridge swung be­low in an in­verted arch, reach­ing all the way back to where Mt. Oku-​​Shirane was sup­posed to be stand­ing. But an enor­mous wall of cloud had in­ter­vened, block­ing out the view. The winds flexed and just a for mo­ment the veils parted, re­veal­ing the loom­ing, just barely dis­cernible out­line of Oku-​​Shirane, float­ing in the air. The sight set my heart trem­bling. It was hard to imag­ine that I had been walk­ing up there just a few hours before.

The clouds set in then like a thick coat. The sum­mit of Mt. Mae-​​Shirane ap­peared out the mist with barely a whis­per and passed be­hind. The slope reached its zenith then dipped down, into the for­est. The hard part had just begun.

Trunk of a beech tree next to Lake Yu.

Leaves fil­ter­ing the evening light

Beech tree do­ing yoga at the edge of Lake Yu.

Car­rion crow wing­ing its way over Mitaga tarn.

---

This was the same way I had come up three years ago. The mem­ory of the climb set my teeth on edge; some parts had re­quired some nerve-​​wracking scram­bling amidst loose boul­ders and mud-​​slick tubes of eroded trail beds. I had promised my­self not to re­turn, and yet here I was sim­ply be­cause there was no other way to re­turn to the camp­site with­out a taxi. Like a zoetrope in re­verse I started down the trail, the fa­mil­iar land­marks pop­ping up left and right.

The clouds were heavy now, preg­nant with rain. The trees, too, on this wind­less, lee­ward side of the moun­tain, stood tall around me, their ever­green branches block­ing the af­ter­noon light. In just a few steps the open vis­tas of the crowns of the moun­tains trans­formed into heavy woods, a tan­gled morass of moss and lichen cov­ered roots and trunks cling­ing to the steep slope, every­where in­ter­rupted by a chaos of rocks that spilled down the in­cline like rub­ble from a blasted cas­tle wall. Half the trees had twisted into skele­tons of wood and, with the mist drift­ing among them, loomed over me like an­guished spir­its. I shud­dered at the thought of be­ing caught here in the night.

Low blood sugar threat­ened my ex­er­tions so I found the same spot I had rested in last time, a small clear­ing with stumps and plates of rock to sit on. Here it was three years ago that an army of grasshop­pers, wing­less and all mov­ing across the for­est floor in the same south­east di­rec­tion, their num­bers spread out through the un­der­brush in all di­rec­tions and their rustling caus­ing the for­est to sound as if it were rain­ing, found me ex­hausted while munch­ing gra­ham crack­ers. They crawled past as if I didn’t ex­ist, not even dodg­ing my hand when I reached out to touch them. The for­est floor lay silent now, but I could still hear the move­ment of the grasshop­pers. I won­dered where they had been head­ing. With whom did they want to rendezvous?

One last, slip­pery snow field brought me to the edge of a trail in ru­ins. Years of care­less trail use and nonex­is­tent trail main­te­nance had left the trail vul­ner­a­ble to the rains as boots passed over the duff and ate into the loose soil. So many peo­ple had passed and so much top­soil had washed away that at parts the trail had sunken into a neck deep gully, right down to the crumbly clay be­neath, and gooey and slip­pery as a mud slide. Tree roots hung ex­posed every­where, some trees just barely hang­ing on. Some­how I had to ne­go­ti­ate this and come out of it still telling my­self that I loved hiking.

For the next three hours the sur­round­ing world nar­rowed to where I planted my boots and which ex­posed roots I could grab. I swung around tree trunks, seek­ing sta­ble de­scents and dug my heels into the mud to keep from shoot­ing down the trail into sharp rocks or ledges that gaped at thin air. Rocks un­der­foot that I bal­anced on, think­ing they were sta­ble, slipped from be­neath me and went crash­ing through the un­der­brush, snap­ping twigs and dis­lodg­ing other rocks on their way down. With un­der­stand­able sagac­ity, not an­other soul had ven­tured onto this trail, and so I was left to slip and slide and swing and scram­ble down the mad­ness of a walk all to my own devices.

The only break in the te­dium came in the wel­come respite of a lev­el­ing out of the slope, when for a brief mo­ment I thought I had reached the bot­tom. As I strode for­ward huge hands of rhodo­den­dron leaves rose in ap­plause all around and sud­denly, upon round­ing a bend in the path, erupt­ing into a pri­vate sur­prise party of pale pink flow­ers. It was magic! The bright color lit up the gloom of the for­est and I slowed to a halt. Not a sound dis­turbed the late af­ter­noon still­ness, and yet it seemed as if there were crea­tures laugh­ing and cheer­ing and mak­ing toasts. I passed through this lit­tle com­mu­nity of rhodo­den­drons and con­fronted a drop into the dark con­fu­sion be­low. The trail had a long way to go.

It was the time of day on a hike when you won­der why the hell you do it. You re­al­ized then that no mat­ter how big your ego, no mat­ter how so­phis­ti­cated your equip­ment, or how fit you were, moun­tains would al­ways be big­ger than you. The walk­ing be­comes a stub­born plac­ing of one foot ahead of the other, your body slick with sweat, and your knees aching from the con­stant stomp­ing and bend­ing, un­til your mind wan­ders and be­gin to feel de­tached from your­self. It is such times that are the most dan­ger­ous; you get care­less and in your fa­tigue you step where you should not or miss a crit­i­cal handhold.

I tried to keep my­self alert, breath­ing an in­nocu­ous song to my­self, “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go! We work and work and work all day! Hi ho! Hi ho hi ho hi ho!” to keep my mind run­ning. Sev­eral times I nearly slipped and fell, but I al­ways man­aged to catch my­self on a root or with a swift leap to a new foothold.

By the time the end of the trail came into view—a ver­dant pool ta­ble of mown grass—I was too tired to cheer. I just lurched down the rest of the bro­ken rock and mud un­til I stood at the edge of an off-​​season ski slope. Step­ping away from the grit of the trail it was al­most like land­ing upon the re­splen­dent car­pet of a ban­quet hall, while look­ing like a vagabond. My knees still wouldn’t straighten out and my thighs kept threat­en­ing to go rub­ber on me. The walk to the camp­site still re­quired fol­low­ing the en­tire length of the ski slope, but at least it was smooth go­ing and an evening breeze cooled the sweat off.

Near the camp­ground the sky be­gan to spit wa­ter. I reached my tent just as the clouds opened up and let loose an fu­ri­ous down­pour. The camp­ground dis­ap­peared in tor­rents of rain, and the moun­tains cracked their sides with peals of thun­der and light­ning. I hud­dled un­der the translu­cent film of poly­ester and lis­tened to the wa­ter drum­ming on the mem­brane. And I thanked the gods for the lit­tle bit of mercy, for al­low­ing me to get back home to safety.

I took my time pack­ing and break­ing camp. The other tents had long since dis­ap­peared. The load back on my back I headed to­ward the cen­ter of Yu­moto for the bus. As I sloshed through the pud­dles a res­cue he­li­copter thun­dered by over­head, right from the di­rec­tion of the start of the day’s climb. I won­dered who hadn’t made it.

Like a quiet dé­noue­ment the bus slipped out of the val­ley like a ghost, car­ry­ing me away with a ball of emo­tions and mem­o­ries. I closed my eyes and let the wind from the cracked open win­dow sing me to sleep.

Yu falls once flowed as a “hot” wa­ter­fall, the wa­ters flow­ing from the hot springs that have since been di­verted for use at the spa far­ther up the valley.

Young plants emerg­ing at the base of a pier next to Lake Yu.

Japan­ese maple leaves sil­hou­et­ted in the evening light.

Part­ing shot of an el­der walker.

Walking In The Plum Rain 2

June 11, 2005 | Laughing Knees | 14 Comments 

Iris fail­ing in the evening light

The rainy sea­son has opened its wings and de­scended upon the is­lands. Most peo­ple would gripe about the steamy air, con­stant over­cast days, in­abil­ity to hang clothes out to dry, and the bloom­ing of white mold all over leather goods, but I’ve al­ways loved this sea­son. The air is cool enough to sleep and, per­haps be­cause of the damp­en­ing ef­fect of the sound of rain, some­how peo­ple seem more sub­dued and sleep­ing comes eas­ier among these crowded apart­ment build­ings. I also love the move­ment of the sky and the veil­ing of dis­tances. In the moun­tains the next bend in the trail loses it­self in the mists and trees emerge out of the gray­ness like wa­tery shadow pup­pets. Moun­tain tops hide away in the clouds and only re­veal them­selves af­ter the proper ablu­tions, and even then only re­luc­tantly. This is the Plum Rain, when hy­drangea bloom and the tree swal­lows fly low over the fields.

Next week the buses that take walk­ers to the moun­tains will fi­nally start run­ning again and the high peaks will call me. I’ve been do­ing my best to get in shape for this, but in­som­nia and work get­ting in the way, I’m not as well-​​conditioned as I had hoped. So I will have to take it slow and set my sights on the big­ger peaks at the sec­ond half of the sum­mer. Still, just know­ing that the snow has largely passed and I can set foot on my fa­vorite ridges makes the heart beat. All win­ter I have been prepar­ing my pack for much lighter walks and now I get to try it out and see if I can walk with­out the pain in my knees over the last few years.

For any­one who doesn’t do much hik­ing the ob­ses­sion with get­ting the weight of a pack down may seem a lit­tle kooky, but when you’ve schlepped huge bun­dles loaded down with every lat­est gad­get up half ver­ti­cal slopes for ten or eleven hours a day, when the as­cent forces you to gasp and the de­scent brings the weight of the moun­tain crunch­ing down upon your knees, there comes a time when you have to ask your­self what the whole point of the walk is. I’ve seen young men carry packs al­most as tall as they are and their whole walk con­sist­ing of plac­ing one foot in front of the other with­out ever look­ing up. Once one guy pulled out an en­tire wa­ter­melon and com­plained of its weight! An­other time a fa­ther car­ried the en­tire se­lec­tion of equip­ment for a fam­ily of five; while he la­bored un­der the load his wife and chil­dren loudly com­plained about how slow he was walk­ing, the wife go­ing so far as to ac­cuse him of bring­ing them all on this un­event­ful waste of time…

If only he, and me, ear­lier, had known of ul­tra­light walk­ing. A craze among back­pack­ers the world over now, when I started out only a few peo­ple knew of the ex­ploits and phi­los­o­phy of Ray Jardin, who is largely cred­ited for start­ing the whole move­ment. Ba­si­cally he sug­gested ways that peo­ple might reeval­u­ate more se­verely what they put into their packs. He and his wife man­aged to hike the three most im­por­tant long-​​distance trails of Amer­ica, the Ap­palachian, the Con­ti­nen­tal Di­vide, and the Pa­cific Crest… known to­gether as the Triple Crown… bear­ing packs of only 8 pounds each, mi­nus food, wa­ter, and fuel. In­stead of heavy tents they used tarps. In­stead of sleep­ing bags, they used quilts. In­stead of the new-​​fangled in­ter­nal frame packs so pop­u­lar among walk­ers around the world to­day, he used a sim­ple, frame­less sack. And with weight so re­duced he walked in run­ning shoes rather than boots.

Other peo­ple have taken his ideas fur­ther and even man­aged to get their base pack weights down to 2.5 ki­los (5 pounds), which ad­mit­tedly is on the fringe of com­fort and safety. I haven’t been able to get close to this, but I am still work­ing on it. The free­dom of wan­der­ing the peaks car­ry­ing what you need for safety, but with­out be­ing bogged down by un­needed equip­ment is an al­lure that keeps me giv­ing all my be­long­ings a crit­i­cal eye.

One thing that try­ing new meth­ods de­mands is equip­ment that per­haps no one has made be­fore. Quite a few ul­tra­light back­pack­ers de­sign and make their own equip­ment. I’ve taught my­self to use the sewing ma­chine and have made a num­ber of tents, tarps, ham­mocks, bags, and rain gear. My next project will be a light­weight back­pack and per­haps a new kind of back­pack­ing um­brella. There is sat­is­fac­tion in mak­ing some­thing your­self and then get­ting out into the moun­tain con­di­tions and see­ing it ac­tu­ally work. What sur­prised me was just how sim­ply most com­mer­cial prod­ucts are made and how lit­tle tech­ni­cal knowl­edge you need to pro­duce most prod­ucts your­self. It’s hard for me now to look at a lot of the cloth­ing made by Patag­o­nia (though I’ve come to ap­pre­ci­ate much more the abil­ity to come up with all their ideas) and jus­tify the ab­surd prices they ask.

There are cer­tain things that I refuse to give up in or­der to lighten the load. I love pho­tog­ra­phy and draw­ing and so re­quire a proper cam­era for con­trol over the kind of pho­tos I want and al­ways carry a sketch­book and art sup­plies. But I no longer carry a fat novel (though I will bring along a thin­ner book for longer trips) or a white gas stove or heavy gore-​​tex rain gear. My tent is a filmy tarp that can con­fig­ured into a storm-​​proof shel­ter and my sleep­ing bag stuffs down to the size of a small loaf of bread (aug­mented by my fi­bre­fill jacket when it gets cold). It just feels won­der­ful when I lift the pack now, every­thing in­side pared down to the essentials.

Go­ing ul­tra­light has af­fected other as­pects of my life. Re­cently I’ve be­gun to whit­tle away all the non-​​nessential be­long­ings in the apart­ment. If I can ap­ply the same logic to my lifestyle I fig­ure that I will edge my­self closer to what re­ally mat­ters in life, and to come harder up against the real world us­ing more of my wits and in­ge­nu­ity rather than tools of con­ve­nience. The sim­plic­ity of the tra­di­tional Japan­ese lifestyle.

And with so much cleared away an un­ob­structed view out of the win­dow at the Plum Rain, falling amidst the green pro­lif­er­a­tion and the set­tled pool in my mind.

Big Bother Goes Digital

June 9, 2005 | Laughing Knees | 21 Comments 

Sluice hatch along the Noh River near my home

Oh great, this news (via On Gaien Hi­gashi Dori) just drove an­other nail into my emo­tional cas­ket over whether to leave Japan. Af­ter deal­ing with dis­crim­i­na­tion al­most daily, es­pe­cially with such things in just this last week as mut­tered com­ments be­tween two high school girls on the train about my look­ing like a ter­ror­ist (be­cause I am olive-​​skinned and look Mid­dle East­ern to those un­fa­mil­iar with Mid­dle East­ern traits… al­ways a strange and blind prej­u­dice, con­sid­er­ing the dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­ber of ter­ror­ists hail­ing from Japan), or my newly-​​moved-​​in-​​next-​​door-​​neighbor clos­ing the cur­tains and win­dow to her apart­ment every time I walk to my front door, or a group of young men in a cof­fee shop blow­ing smoke in my face and when I asked them to please stop they, as­sum­ing that I can’t speak Japan­ese, even though I just spoke to them in per­fect Japan­ese, sneered and, in in­so­lent and in­sult­ing lan­guage told me to my face, “Go back to your stu­pid lit­tle coun­try and play with the dogs like you did be­fore you came here. You’re stink­ing up my space.”, now learn­ing that very likely I will start to be re­quired by the Japan­ese gov­ern­ment to carry some sort of track­ing de­vice so that my po­ten­tial ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ties are con­stantly mon­i­tored, well, the ris­ing of the out­rage me­ter is tick­ing aw­fully close to the red zone.

Just hope some­thing can be done to stop this. Of course, the Japan­ese them­selves will, as usual, not be re­quired to par­tic­i­pate in the whole thing.

Noth­ing like xeno­pho­bia and para­noia to spice up a per­fectly splen­did morn­ing, eh?

Slow Songs

June 4, 2005 | Laughing Knees | 9 Comments 

Uniden­ti­fied species of moth with long wispy an­ten­nae that sweep back as the crea­ture slowly flies about the chest high river­side grasses near my home.

Lately I’ve been lis­ten­ing to Jack Johnson’s new al­bum In Be­tween Dreams and find­ing the sim­plic­ity of the in­stru­men­ta­tion and fo­cus on lyrics bring­ing back my old love for singing along with the mu­sic that I love. The al­bum re­minds me of a state­ment made to travel writer Brian Schwartz in his book World of Vil­lages by an Efe friend (in­cor­rectly known as a Pygmy) who asked why Schwartz didn’t know how to play an in­stru­ment and, af­ter Schwartz replied that back home he had pro­fes­sional mu­si­cians who did the play­ing for him, stared at him in sur­prise. “Where’s the fun in that?” the Efe asked. “Mu­sic ought to be sung and played and danced to by every­one involved.”

I used to spend hours every day strum­ming my gui­tar and singing and writ­ing songs. It came nat­u­rally to me, es­pe­cially the lyrics; some­how the melodies bloomed in my head and the words, un­like with po­etry, popped out seem­ingly as if by the touch of God. I could lose my­self in the cre­ation of the songs and emerge at the end of the day, sur­prised that dark­ness had fallen and that I had for­got­ten to eat. Some­times some of my col­lege friends and I would sit on the roof of my apart­ment in Eu­gene, Ore­gon. U.S.A., im­pro­vis­ing as we laid down chords and com­bi­na­tions, play­ing and laugh­ing, and mak­ing up words till well into the evenings. I even played in an Irish pub here in Tokyo for a while, croon­ing about life and the laugh­ter and joy I saw around me.

The mu­sic has died since then, in great part be­cause so much of life in Japan re­volves around ready-​​made pack­ages, in­clud­ing mu­sic. No one my age plays their in­stru­ments any more. When I even sug­gest to those who ad­mit to still fid­dling with their gui­tars and pi­anos that we try play­ing a gig on a street cor­ner some­where they look at me in hor­ror. “What if the po­lice come?” they ask. That, of course, kills the joy in singing for the love of singing. And that is what Japan is like, the reg­u­la­tion like some metal­lic killjoy ter­ri­fied of spon­tane­ity and un­bri­dled elation.

Jack John­son even dresses the way I do, the way I love most: t-​​shirt, shorts, san­dals, hair buzz cut. Sit­ting with friends in the back­yard en­joy­ing one an­oth­ers’ com­pany, the words in the songs about liv­ing sim­ply and fo­cus­ing on the lit­tle things in life and ap­pre­ci­at­ing them. When a friend handed me the al­bum to bor­row and I popped it into my com­puter at home, it was like re­dis­cov­er­ing my old Ore­gon friends. I es­pe­cially like his song “Break­down” about wish­ing the train he was on would break down so he could take the time to look around him. So poignant the truth of slow­ing down, at times painfully re­mind­ing me of how far I’ve ven­tured from my own de­ter­mi­na­tion to live with­out rushing.

One song caught me by sur­prise, “Good Peo­ple”. I had just re­turned from a par­tic­u­larly rough pas­sage on the evening train, packed to the gills with late night com­muters. Per­haps it was the elec­tric­ity in the air from the storm out­side, but a nasty mood seemed to in­fil­trate the crowd. I had been stand­ing near the door. At my sta­tion I was about to step out of the train when be­hind me some sweat­ing busi­ness­man who couldn’t wait for those ahead of him to ne­go­ti­ate the hu­man bod­ies at­tempted to mus­cle me out of the way. When I re­sisted he placed his hand on my face and shoved me to the side, mak­ing me trip and fall onto the plat­form. I was so in­censed that I raised my fist to punch him, but caught my­self just in time. Fum­ing I shuf­fled home, mum­bling ob­scen­i­ties about Japan­ese men (who have an ob­nox­ious ten­dency to flaunt bravado and what they call male “pu­raido”… “pride”) and feel­ing my emo­tions suf­fo­cate me. I clicked the “play” but­ton in iTunes on my Mac and let Jack Johnson’s mu­sic wipe the slate clean.

When “Good Peo­ple” came on, I got to won­der­ing. Just why is it that so much of the pop­u­lar cul­ture around the world seems to fo­cus on be­ing “bad” and sullen and miserly and fast and re­bel­lious, with brows bee­tled and shout­ing and bad-​​mouthing every­thing and every­one? You watch tele­vi­sion, as Jack John­son al­ludes to, and there is noth­ing nice there. So much of it is self­ish and hys­ter­i­cal and in­dif­fer­ent. This week there was “Ally McBeal”, “Outer Lim­its”, “An­gel”, “An­drom­eda”, “The Simp­sons”, CNN News, and even an An­i­mal Planet doc­u­men­tary in which the an­nouncer de­scribed a male lion as “sex­ist” and a cow ele­phant as “the fairer sex”, and, though I like some of the shows, all of them full of face­tious and self-​​absorbed peo­ple whom I would never want to get to know in real life. The only re­cent pro­gram I’ve seen lately that I en­joy has been “Oz”, with its hon­est lan­guage and will­ing­ness to look at un­com­fort­able and un­con­ven­tional views of men.

Mu­sic seems to be much the same. If you switch on MTV so much there is of young men and women em­u­lat­ing the wealthy lifestyle, with lit­tle deeper thought on any­thing. Some of it is pure fun, of course, but the fo­cus is still on go­ing it fast and of­ten ad­vo­cat­ing anger as the so­lu­tion to in­jus­tice and pain. A lot of this grows nat­u­rally out of the re­bel­lion of the 60’s, but surely there ought to be a coun­ter­bal­ance with go­ing slow and tak­ing the road of quiet, re­flec­tion, and placation?

I love the quiet and gen­tle view of songs such as Jack Johnson’s. With such a view each day can roll on in and the pe­cu­liar­i­ties and hold ups ab­sorbed in stride. I just like nice, laugh­ing peo­ple. I like a merry soul and peo­ple who are gen­er­ous with their time and be­long­ings. I like singing for singing’s sake. Songs that cel­e­brate the value of moments.

Par­don me now as I tune out, close my eyes, bob my head, and sing along to “Never Know”…