Nocturne

October 21, 2006 | Laughing Knees | 14 Comments 

Im­age taken of the Earth by Voy­ager, 5.76 bil­lion kilo­me­ters away, in 1991, at the sug­ges­tion of Carl Sagan. Cred­its: NASA, 1991. I’ve re­touched the photo to take out the orig­i­nal light re­flec­tions from the Voy­ager cam­era. That tiny white dot a lit­tle off cen­ter to the right is Earth. You may want to clean your com­puter screen of any other dust par­ti­cles. That is where di­nosaurs scut­tled, con­ti­nents jit­tered, Je­sus claimed he was the son of a god, the Bud­dha found a truth, Julius Ceasar claimed vic­tory over the whole world, Mick Jag­ger sang “I Can’t Get No Sat­is­fac­tion”, a grow­ing, vi­brat­ing spot of mi­cro­bial be­ings threat­ened to over­whelm the dot, two tiny pro­jec­tiles plinked against two foli­cles of con­crete and it was claimed to be a chang­ing point in the his­tory of the dot, and a cu­ri­ously un­aware leader of the mi­cro­bial be­ings squeaked out to the dot, “We have prevailed!”

I couldn’t sleep. Swing­ing my legs over the side of the bed I stum­bled in the dark­ness out into the hall­way and blearily made my way to the toi­let. Cricket song rang through the open bath­room win­dow and seemed to float on the chilly night air that poured in through the screen. Some­where an­other sleep­less soul, a jun­gle crow, cawed ir­ri­ta­bly among the tree­tops. I flushed the toi­let and for a few mo­ments the rush­ing wa­ter drowned out all other sounds and the close­ness of the apart­ment made it seem as if the world ended at the walls around me. When the gur­gling of the wa­ter cut off, sud­denly the dark­ness opened around me again and the walls seemed to dis­ap­pear. The clock ticked in the kitchen along to the hum of the re­frig­er­a­tor. LED lights from the mi­crowave oven, the tele­phone, and the sleep­ing com­puter floated in the dim­ness, like dis­tant city lights. A wraith of a moth softly bat­ted at the kitchen win­dow and then whirred away.

I heard my­self whis­per in the dark. “What are you afraid of?”

I broke open the re­frig­er­a­tor door, light stream­ing out like the Mother Ship, and ran my eye over the milk car­ton and car­ton of ap­ple juice. Noth­ing I wanted, so I closed the door and stood a mo­ment let­ting my eyes read­just. I picked out a glass from the dry­ing rack and ran the faucet in the kitchen sink, fill­ing the glass. More by feel than sight, I sipped from the rim, and felt the cool liq­uid run down my throat. A lit­tle spilled over onto my chin and the chill made me jump. The taste of chlo­rine and iron.

“Shouldn’t have to pay for this,” I whispered.

I tip­toed back to the bed­room door and looked in on my wife sleep­ing. The cov­ers were partly thrown back and one knee was lifted. Her face, her closed eyes and slack lips, re­flected the grey light from the win­dow, all still. I leaned over the bed and as softly as I could, drew the blan­ket back around her. She stirred, the rhythm of her breath­ing mo­men­tar­ily paused, un­til it re­sumed again.

Last photo of the Earth taken from the sur­face of the moon, Apollo 17, 1972. I was twelve years old in Japan, Is­rael was at war with Egypt, my best friend Steven Radolin­sky was about to re­turn to the States, the hu­man pop­u­la­tion had just reached three bil­lion a year or two be­fore. Cred­its: NASA, 1972

My fin­gers found my fleece jacket on the floor at the foot of the bed. I slipped it on and headed back out to the hall­way, to the en­trance way. Crouch­ing down, I laced on my beat up san­dals. They felt cold and the straps stiff when I pulled the tab. I un­latched the front door and pushed it open. Cool air rushed in, like a cu­ri­ous dog sniff­ing out the con­fines. The door closed with a heavy thud, which raised the hairs on my neck; the sound was so iso­late and abrupt in the pre-​​dawn still­ness. The soles of my san­dals crunched on the gravel and I glided be­neath the dark beards of un­pruned Japan­ese maples and Japon­ica, the tips of leaves brush­ing the top of my head and shoul­ders. When I came out to the street the street light was blink­ing and a lone hawk­moth whizzed around the light, seek­ing a cen­ter that only it could see. Be­yond the sphere of light neigh­bor­hood houses stood along the sides of the street, somber and doz­ing, and I passed, peer­ing left and right, ex­pect­ing any mo­ment for some­one in a win­dow to shift po­si­tion. A lone cat slid across my path, paus­ing only a mo­ment to glance at me, be­fore blend­ing into the shadows.

I made my way to the nearby park, where open space, dewey grass, and the sky cut out of the frame of Tokyo let me stretch out a lit­tle and look up. All above hung a black cur­tain spilled with salt, with nee­dles on end, with the pow­der of sil­ver from a bro­ken mir­ror, the fab­ric so thin and del­i­cate that the skin of heaven shone through. I lay back in the wet grass, legs and arms spread out, my back soak­ing up the chilly damp, and breathed in and out. A satel­lite charged across the empti­ness chas­ing a bear and a swan, hunted in turn by a sol­dier. I closed my eyes and heard the crick­ets again, mil­lions of them, all in cho­rus, singing to the sky.

“What if this is not here to­mor­row?” I mur­mured. “Who will re­mem­ber me, in this moment?”

Som­brero Galaxy M104, taken by the Hub­ble Space Tele­scope. Cred­its: NASA and The Hub­ble Her­itage Team (STSci/​ AURA) Hub­ble Space Tele­scope ACS•STSci•PRC03-28

Dark Side of the Hill

October 17, 2006 | Laughing Knees | 10 Comments 

Much as I love im­mers­ing my­self in the beauty of moun­tains and the peace that I find there, my re­cent re­fusal to write about things that make me an­gry or that I find un­nec­es­sar­ily ugly or un­fair is tan­ta­mount to stick­ing my head in the sand. It’s not all pretty pic­tures, as you all know.

This morn­ing I woke at dawn to go for a long walk, this time with­out my cam­era, just to be out there to look and see. I had slept well and in the dim en­clo­sure of my apart­ment I moved about hum­ming to my­self. When I fi­nally did open the front door and step out­side, the air was brisk, with a sky flush with clouds. All the rooftops and trees rang out with the calls and songs of brown-​​eared bul­buls, jun­gle crows, great tits, tree spar­rows (Passer mon­tanus… not the West­ern hemi­sphere species), and hordes of flock­ing grey star­lings. It should have been a tran­quil and in­vig­o­rat­ing morn­ing, but right on the street out­side my apart­ment my crest fell.

A man walk­ing his cocker spaniel waited as the dog did his num­ber on the side­walk, and then the man just walked off, with­out glanc­ing at me, leav­ing the num­ber to do its fly-​​ridden thing. It be­ing a morn­ing of seren­ity and tol­er­ance I de­cided to shrug that off and con­tinue walk­ing. Two min­utes later an­other man stepped, this time with three dachs­hunds, out of his newly built, metic­u­lously man­i­cured house and walled gar­den, into the gravel dri­ve­way be­long­ing to the kinder­garten next door, and waited as all three dogs did their num­bers. When they were done, the man turned his heel and reen­tered his fas­tid­i­ous house, again, leav­ing the mess on the ground for bom­bardier bee­tles and mag­gots. Well, I told my­self, this isn’t my home, and he seemed like a rea­son­able man, so let’s not as­sume any­thing here. So on I trun­dled, still in the mood for humming.

I rounded the next cor­ner and came face-​​to-​​face with yet an­other hous­ing de­vel­op­ment in the vicin­ity of my apart­ment… the sev­en­teenth so far in my five years here… this time tak­ing over a small park that must have been part of this area since I was born. Now, Chofu, my town, sup­pos­edly has a law which re­quires 20 per­cent of the land area to be re­served for trees and parks or small farms and nurs­eries. One of the rea­sons I moved here was to make sure that I had a least some sem­blance of green­ery around me while in Tokyo. How­ever, the big hous­ing cor­po­ra­tions like Daiwa House and Sek­isui Homes and Mit­subishi De­vel­op­ment must have made some under-​​the-​​table deals with city of­fi­cials and by­passed the laws. Every sin­gle one of the green ar­eas around my home, now that the lit­tle park had been taken, had dis­ap­peared dur­ing the five years I’ve been here, to be re­placed by ex­ceed­ingly cramped mock­eries of Amer­i­can “lit­tle boxes on the hill top” “all made out of ticky tacky”, some with barely a me­ter of space be­tween the walls of the houses. Every­thing was be­gin­ning to look ex­actly the same with none of the older ex­pres­sions of in­di­vid­ual cre­ativ­ity and the signs of var­i­ous states of growth and di­lap­i­da­tion that tra­di­tional Japan­ese neigh­bor­hoods al­ways car­ried with an air of dig­nity and pleasure.

I saw yet an­other man (al­ways men… I’ve rarely seen a Japan­ese woman not care­fully pick up af­ter her dog) al­low­ing his pomeran­ian to pro­lif­er­ate the var­i­ous species of dung bee­tles that tum­ble about those odor­if­er­ous minia­ture land­scapes, this time go­ing out of his way to part some street­side aza­leas, step­ping into and tram­pling the branches, and set­ting the dog in­side that space like a flower pot. He, too, af­ter glanc­ing guiltily about, walked away as if he were the only man in the world com­mit­ting such misdemeanors.

As tends to hap­pen when my eyes fo­cus on cer­tain sub­jects, my mind went into over­drive and saw all the ug­li­ness re­peated over and over again, the hideous hous­ing de­vel­op­ments, the poo­ing dogs, the litter-​​choked river, the signs shoo­ing skate­board­ers and bi­cy­clists away from the pub­lic parks, someone’s dirty panties by the side of the river path, a small, hid­den slope seething with dis­carded re­frig­er­a­tors, bi­cy­cles, book­shelves, and stained mat­tresses, ten­drils of plas­tic cordage sus­pended from trees, a flock of oily and filthy pi­geons, many with club feet or de­formed beaks, piles upon piles upon piles of garbage-​​filled plas­tic bags wait­ing to be picked up, the first bomber plane of the day roar­ing by to­ward the Amer­i­can air base in the west, the sickly-​​sweet odor of sewage and de­ter­gent flow­ing from a storm drain into the river, the carp and tur­tles pok­ing about in the toxic mud of the an­kle deep river wa­ter, and a hori­zon choked with rooftop af­ter rooftop af­ter rooftop af­ter rooftop af­ter rooftop…

I started clench­ing my fists in anger and felt my chest con­strict, so that it was hard to breathe prop­erly. I saw a man walk non­cha­lantly down to the river’s edge and, since it was dawn and few peo­ple were about, zip down his pants and send his urine arch­ing into the wa­ter, and that did it for me. I couldn’t en­joy this walk. So I turned and headed back home.

Along the way I hap­pened upon yet an­other man stand­ing as his dog, this time a huge samoyed, did its con­tri­bu­tion to the pin­worm em­pire, right on the walk­way of some stu­dent apart­ments. I al­most walked past this man, too, but was boil­ing over with in­dig­na­tion, so I stopped, turned around and asked him point-​​blank, “Ex­cuse me, are you in­tend­ing to just leave every­thing there, right in front of that person’s home, in the walkway?”

He scowled and turned bright red. “No,” he replied.

“Ah, then you in­tend to pick up af­ter the dog with your bare hands?”

He, of course, couldn’t re­ply to that, but he did any­way, “No.”

“What if I de­cided to do the same thing right in front of your house?” I asked.

“I prob­a­bly wouldn’t like it,” he an­swered. I felt like I was talk­ing to a naughty teenager.

“Please think about it then,” I said, and with that I turned and con­tin­ued on home. I felt prickly and off bal­ance, and scolded my­self all the way to my door.

When back in the apart­ment I let out a great sigh, made my­self some tea. Tea in hand I ven­tured to my com­puter and turned it on. Opened my e-​​mail. And found this news. And the video:

Body of a Ti­betan nun shot by Chi­nese sol­diers at Nangpo Pass in the Hi­malaya.

Summer Walks Part 3– So September Blue

October 10, 2006 | Laughing Knees | 20 Comments 

View of the Shirane-​​Three Peaks, with Mt. Ki­tadake, the sec­ond high­est moun­tain in Japan, off to the right side. Here Mt. Noutori rises above the clouds. The val­leys hid in shadow be­low, while the world above basked in late sum­mer sunlight.

Con­ver­sa­tions heard along the trail.

“Where did that dog come from?”

“What dog?”

“The one stand­ing there on the trail, look­ing down at us.”

“Wow. How’d he man­age to get down those rock faces? We had to use chains!”

“And he’s just stand­ing there, po­litely wait­ing for us to pass. A moun­tain dog with good manners!”

“Looks like he’s just out for an af­ter­noon stroll. I won­der if he’s go­ing or coming?”

“Com­ing, I guess. If you were from around here and knew this killer trail, would you be start­ing up right now?”

“He prob­a­bly thinks we’re a lit­tle daft.”

“No doubt. Do you think that’s a smile on his face?”

“Look, I think he wants to pass now. I guess all this bab­bling has ru­ined his solitude.”

“Best let him pass then.”

“There he goes, as if it’s the most nat­ural thing in the world.”

Look­ing back over the ridge to­ward Mt. Kan­non. The whole ar­ray of peaks in the Houou Three Peaks range pay trib­ute to Bud­dhist lu­mi­nar­ies, like the bod­hisattvas Kan­non and Jizo. Every­where you walk tiny shrines and of­fer­ings to stat­uettes con­cen­trate the pres­ence of walk­ers’ in­volve­ment with the place. One ridge, where nu­mer­ous walk­ers have died, shel­ters a group of jizo stat­ues in mem­ory of the walk­ers’ spir­its. An al­most eerie sense of oth­ers watch­ing per­vades the whole moun­tain range.

“I did not say that I didn’t want to wait for you, or that…!”

“You al­ways have to show how tough and manly you are! Why can’t you just slow down?”

“I am slow­ing down. I’m try­ing to match your pace…”

“What, so you think I can’t climb this trail? You think I’m too weak to han­dle it?”

“I didn’t say that. I just don’t like falling be­hind and hav­ing to walk right be­hind some stranger in front of me.”

“Oh, so you think every­one here is too slow? FIne! I’ll just pick up my pace and make sure to be bet­ter than every­one else! See you later!”

“Hey, don’t do that. Come on. Where you go­ing? Oh, come on. Don’t be silly…”

Like a dark queen Mt. Fuji rises to the south­east. Though the de­ity that lives in the vol­cano is con­sid­ered male in Japan, Mt. Fuji has al­ways seemed like a fe­male monarch to me. In the over thirty five years I have seen her, in­clud­ing five years liv­ing right at her base, where she sur­veyed me be­low in my apart­ment win­dow, she has never re­vealed her­self the same way twice. Dark and fiery red on sum­mer days, wreathed in clouds in au­tumn, even glid­ing ghostly white on moon­lit nights, she sits aloof and alone in her vast throne be­tween the sur­round­ing, more timid moun­tains.

“Are you all right?”

“I feel sick. I think I pushed my­self too hard.”

“Here. Try some wa­ter. It might make you feel a lit­tle better.”

“I wasn’t try­ing to slow you down.”

“I know.”

“I’ve only been in the moun­tains once this year.”

“I know.”

“I slept badly all night.”

“I know.”

“That climb was re­ally hard !”

“You can say that again! It was so steep and slip­pery I couldn’t even stand still to take a break!”

“I still haven’t for­given you yet.”

“I know.”

The last peak be­fore Houou de­scends into the val­ley. Seem­ingly from the top of every creep­ing pine, wind­blown larch, and out­crop­ping, nut­crack­ers called and winged amidst the drift­ing clouds. Called “hoshi-​​garasu” (star crow) in Japan­ese, their span­gled breasts flashed white as they whisked by.

“Would you like an­other chicken dumpling?”

“No thanks. It’s too hot to eat chicken.”

“Re­ally? It goes well with the pork broth rice balls. Fol­low it with some salt-​​pickled cel­ery. Nice and crunchy!”

“I don’t see how you can stuff your­self like that in this heat. You’re like a drunk salaryman.”

“Bet­ter grab some while they’re still avail­able. This walk­ing does won­ders for the ap­petite. Sure you don’t want some? They’re re­mark­ably good. I thought they were your favorite?”

“You’re un­be­liev­able. You’ve be­gun sa­vor­ing con­ve­nience store food. All dis­crim­i­na­tion right out the window.”

“In the moun­tains every­thing tastes good. Sure you don’t want one? Last one!”

Stunted yel­low birch hold on tight to the rocks to sur­vive the re­lent­less winds. The rock gar­den above Kan­non Peak Moun­tain Hut seemed like some­thing out of a sur­real paint­ing, the col­ors and forms so in­tense and twisted.”

“The woods smell nice.”

“Bal­sam fir. I got some of the sap on my fin­gers. Here, take a whiff.”

“I like just ly­ing here un­der the trees. I could lie here all day.”

“Too bad we have to get back to work tomorrow.”

“My legs feel like rub­ber bands. Don’t think I can take an­other step.”

“We have some time. Let’s just close our eyes and for­get about the time for a short while.”

“Shhh. Lis­ten. The wind rustling the leaves.”

Larch woods ap­pear­ing out of a lift­ing mist, along the steep trail out of Goza­ishi Kousen.

“That sign said forty min­utes till the end!”

“How many min­utes has it been?”

“One hour and thirty minutes.”

“Per­haps the sign was meant for faster walkers.”

“This ice cream re­ally hits the spot! I think it’s the best ice cream cone I’ve ever had!”

“Do you think we have time for a hot spring bath? I could re­ally use a bath right now.”

“The bus comes in twenty min­utes. I don’t think so.”

“Hope the other bus pas­sen­gers will sur­vive my in­flu­ence! I don’t have a change of clothes.”

“Well, you might knock them all un­con­scious, so prob­a­bly you don’t have to worry about their re­ac­tions… Ow! That hurt!”

“Serves you right! Hey, can I take a bite of your ice cream? I’m al­ready fin­ished with mine.”

Summer Walks Part 2– The Lungs of the Mountain God

October 3, 2006 | Laughing Knees | 13 Comments 

De­scend­ing from Kurobe Peak. Up here, with the whole sky above and the whole world be­low, you walk a fine thread be­tween the sub­lime and the per­ilous. It is a chance to learn the lim­its of those quak­ing mus­cles and the bor­ders of your san­ity. You learn, over time, to cra­dle your­self in a tran­quil de­ter­mi­na­tion, nei­ther giv­ing in to the fear of those head-​​spinning ledges, nor push­ing be­yond that veil of over­con­fi­dence, al­ways re­mem­ber­ing that you do not be­long here, you were not de­signed for such rocks and thin air.

Click on the im­ages to have them open as big­ger im­ages as your read.

The cloud, huge and black and shak­ing with fury, low­ered its brows as I stepped over the fin­ger of a ridge. It had en­veloped the moun­tain, send­ing the world into a shift­ing grey sea of veils and doubts, dar­ing me to pass. Arms of va­por mus­cled their way across the trail, now so washed out by the fea­ture­less blan­kets of cloud that the ground be­neath me seemed to turn to gas, and only the firm­ness of foot­ing re­minded me of its so­lid­ity. My eyes fol­lowed the thun­der­head down into the bowl of moun­tains where I was to spend the night, and I saw noth­ing but roil­ing soup. Light­ing sang stac­cato within the belly of the cloud, like fren­zied fire­flies, and the cloud re­sponded with a se­ries of sten­to­rian whiplashes, on vo­cal chords so heavy and pure that the moun­tain be­neath me jumped in fright.

I hes­i­tated. Look­ing back down the trail I had just climbed I could make out the thread of the stream far be­low, and the last of the sun’s rays pool­ing in the ravine. My whole body burned from the last eight hours of ex­er­tion and my knees felt about to give way. There was no go­ing back. I turned to face the rum­bling mon­ster in the val­ley and started down the trail. Light­en­ing and thun­der greeted my de­ci­sion, as if in exultation.

Sil­hou­ettes of larches in the gath­er­ing storm just above Kurobe­goro lodge. There is al­ways a dilemma be­tween see­ing the beauty around you and watch­ing where you place your feet. You want to drink it all in and sa­vor the your time with the per­cep­tions, but when a steep, knee-​​cracking trail choked with boul­ders slick with rain and moss de­mands your at­ten­tion, the cam­era must go into its bag and your eyes must con­cen­trate on just where you are.

Tokyo lay swel­ter­ing in sum­mer for­get­ful­ness. Like a fin­ger poked through tis­sue pa­per the train car­ried me out of the steam and de­posited me gen­tly along its bright, sleepy reaches, just at the edge of wheels and pave­ment. With my dis­count ticket that only al­lowed car­riage by trains that walked, not ran, my ar­rival in the hot spring town was greeted, in the first store I stepped into for a can of cof­fee, by closing-​​time mu­sic over the speaker sys­tem. Most of the throngs of tourists had al­ready re­tired to the inns and the park­ing lots waited, deserted.

I crossed the bridge over the roar­ing river, from the town, over a no-man’s-land of snow melt-​​off, to the wilder­ness wait­ing on the other side. It be­gan abruptly: a wall of cedars that ra­di­ated a shell of cool air and hid its in­nards with tan­gles of lichen-​​bearded down­fall and brush. The trail skirted the edge of the for­est as if timid, only re­luc­tantly en­ter­ing the si­lence when the laps of the cliffs left no al­ter­na­tive. Within a hun­dred steps the for­est and the moun­tain had me to them­selves. I be­gan to whis­tle, a sliver of sound de­clar­ing my own lit­tle territory.

I walked past kneel­ing grand­fa­ther spruces and Mother Earth breath­ing from open­ings in the ground. Flotil­las of drag­on­flies, like an­gels wrapped in cel­lo­phane, cir­cled my brow, the cranes of their legs and mandibles work­ing the air of gnats and mayflies. Grasshop­pers set up band­stands in the grass and zithered the blues to the ac­com­pa­ni­ment of jays screech­ing in the canopy. In the late blue sky tufts of clouds set sail for the peaks, mark­ing mile­posts for me to follow.

Cloud catch­ing the last rays of the set­ting sun at Sug­oroku Pass. Night falls like a drop­ping cur­tain where the rar­i­fied air can­not hold the light. You find your­self sit­ting still for un­tracked beats of time, watch­ing for hints of move­ment. Clouds sail­ing against an un­blem­ished sky, grass heads wav­ing at passers-​​by, in­cre­men­tal shifts of gravel on a slope, nudged by the wind. The wind is every­thing up here.

The four men, clad in rock-​​stomper hik­ing boots and ny­lon pants, had been friends a long time. With an ease and ca­ma­raderie borne of years of moun­tain walks to­gether, they trudged up the trail in single-​​file, grunt­ing at the same boul­ders to scram­ble up, and break­ing out in laugh­ter at the same old jokes and re­counts of past mishaps. The fab­ric of their packs had faded in the sun and each wore a dif­fer­ent, worn-​​out base­ball cap, stained with sweat and adorned with medal­lions from pre­vi­ous walks. One of them had ob­vi­ously been drink­ing too much and when he, red in the face, but obliv­i­ous, farted loudly while haul­ing him­self up a steep em­bank­ment, the other three po­litely re­ferred to him as “Mr. Aro­mather­apy”. They slapped their thighs in mer­ri­ment and had to stop and let me pass while they sorted out their composure.

We did a kind of re­lay race, those men and me. I kept up a steady, but slow, pace, stop­ping to take pho­tographs or to gaze at the moun­tains open­ing around me, while they trun­dled on in bursts, huff­ing and puff­ing to some next van­tage point, where they would stop to take breaths and smoke cig­a­rettes. One of them, cig­a­rette in hand, nod­ded to me as we stood on an over­look with the en­tire val­ley be­low, and mused, “Ah, moun­tain air! It tastes fresh as a young woman’s kiss, no?” With that he took an­other drag on his cig­a­rette and blew a plume into the af­ter­noon breeze.

My com­pan­ions for much of the sec­ond day of the walk, four hik­ers cross a pre­car­i­ous ridge and head down to Sug­oroku lodge and camp­site. They never stopped talk­ing once dur­ing the en­tire time they walked. The joy they felt rubbed off on me and dis­pelled the bout of lone­li­ness that had over­come me. I tried not to carry the trou­bles from home with me, but such walk­ing tends to give you a lot of time to think and reconsider.

The sun casts its af­ter­noon light upon the base of Momi­sawa Peak. Every­thing seems brighter and more mythic in such a ver­ti­cal world. In the warm af­ter­noon lull, with­out wind to top­ple you or rain to chill you, you can stand on such a ridge and shout out your in­vin­ci­bil­ity, be­cause it re­ally does seem as if all cares have dis­si­pated with the ris­ing al­ti­tude. Your en­dor­phins… at least while you are vent­ing your lungs… de­clare you ex­empt from gravity.

View of my home for the night of the sec­ond day of the walk, Sug­oroku moun­tain hut and camp­site. The last time I stayed here a hail storm buf­feted my tent and left the sandy camp ground a slosh­ing mess. Af­ter a long day, how­ever, such sights make your mouth wa­ter for food you haven’t made yet and your tired mus­cles yearn for hor­i­zon­tal respite.

The man in the neigh­bor­ing tent, who must have eaten some­thing dis­agree­able, punc­tu­ated the night with var­i­ous demon­stra­tions of his bod­ily func­tions, most no­tably a med­ley of wet and dry farts, from squeaky to tuba-​​like, com­bined with more omi­nous in­ter­rup­tions of a more throaty na­ture. When he fi­nally de­cided to pro­claim his vir­tu­os­ity to all the world by ex­it­ing his tent and crunch­ing back and forth across the gravel in front of my tent I de­cided to bat­tle sleep­less­ness with a sor­tie into the dark­ness. To my as­ton­ish­ment and ut­ter de­light, the Milky Way had sprayed it­self across the sky with par­tic­u­lar fer­vor; I could al­most feel the Earth swing along the outer rim of our galaxy. Aside from the de­bil­i­tated mu­si­cian wan­der­ing about the camp­site, no one else was awake and I had the stars to my­self. The air had been in­haled by the moun­tain and held, so that all was still, and a kind of downy heat bloomed in the val­ley. I snuck away to the op­po­site side of the camp­ground… and came upon a scene I will never for­get. Be­neath a blaz­ing full moon wooly dol­lops of clouds bathed in the sil­verly light and splashed feath­ers against the great bath­tub of sur­round­ing moun­tains. It took my breath away. I sat on a rock, be­yond which the world dropped away into dark­ness, and lost my­self in the magic of the mo­ment. Then I broke the spell. Think­ing I could cap­ture what I saw and felt in a pho­to­graph, I ran back to the tent and re­trieved my cam­era. When I re­turned the mo­ment had passed. All the clouds had drained away into the plumb­ing of the forests below.

Tent pitched at the edge of Sug­oroku pond, as far away from the other campers as the space would al­low. This was a a so-​​called “ul­tra­light” tent, a wafer of a shel­ter at only 855 grams, that I was bring­ing up into this alpine zone for the first time. In such a place the roof over your head can lit­er­ally spell life or death, so when I fi­nally lay down and closed the fab­ric door, it was with re­lief that the whole thing felt so tight and se­cure up here where the winds can shred your shel­ter like pa­per. Though I don’t like to in­un­date my­self with too many thoughts of equip­ment and fads, you do end up spend­ing a lot of time con­sid­er­ing what you must bring. It is one of the things I love about climb­ing moun­tains: that im­me­di­acy of phys­i­cal needs and the mind to adapt to it. There is no sep­a­ra­tion be­tween mind and body here, and I sus­pect hu­mans lived that way for most of our history.

Stars over Sug­oroku. It’s amaz­ing just how much ac­tiv­ity goes on in the heav­ens. Planes, he­li­copters, satel­lites, clouds, glim­mer­ing stars, rolling fir­ma­ment, pirou­et­ting moon, comets, me­te­orites, the Sun… you won­der why more “Armageddon”-style dis­as­ters don’t play out more of­ten. It’s all big out there and I just have two lit­tle eyes to see it.

Mist ris­ing from the val­ley be­neath Sug­oroku Peak. The moun­tains are like the sea; they hold wa­ter and wind in the same un­du­lat­ing way. There are tides and waves and storms and drift­wood. You can hear the break­ers, too, slower and softer and more pro­longed, but they have the same in­sis­tent re­sult, grind­ing the rock to gran­ules, over aeons and aeons.

Crags ris­ing up through the clouds around Mit­sumata. There are some places that peo­ple will never ven­ture, where, just a stone’s throw away, no hu­man foot has ever trod­den. It’s com­fort­ing to know that such places still exist.

The clouds had cov­ered the sun. So far the talk back at the camp of a ty­phoon surg­ing in hadn’t ma­te­ri­al­ized into winds yet, so, cheer­ful in the rain that sprayed the flower mead­ows along this lonely side trail, I me­an­dered along with my cam­era, stop­ping every few feet to kneel down among the fronds and flower heads, legs and hands and face wet with dew, every sep­a­rate, tiny life a won­der. For the mo­ment at least, un­til I reached the next moun­tain hut only a hour’s hur­ried march away and could de­ter­mine whether the storm’s po­ten­tial was too risky for fur­ther climb­ing, I could linger and not worry about time for once. Every­thing caught my eye, every­thing pho­to­genic and new. Such mo­ments bring out fierce joy in me, a real sense of what makes me happy and know­ing who I am. I of­ten imag­ine what I would have been like as a pre­his­toric hunter. The plea­sure of im­mers­ing my­self in my sur­round­ings and learn­ing to see would have felt com­plete, I think, as much of what a hu­man be­ing can hope to make out of life as any mod­ern as­pi­ra­tion for a career.

Geums (Geum pen­tapetalum) soak­ing in the rain. In au­tumn their flow­ers turn to white tufts of down that look like a scene out of “Hair”. For such del­i­cate crea­tures, they are re­mark­ably tough, far tougher than I can ever hope to be.

Climb up to Mit­sumata Rengé. The trail took a de­tour around the edges of a boulder-​​strewn glacial cirque where it was so still I could hear the drip­ping of a tiny spring off the trail.

When I reached this snow field the trail sud­denly dis­ap­peared. Where the trail was sup­posed to be, last winter’s record snows had oblit­er­ated all traces of the dis­col­ored pas­sage of many feet and the painted red cir­cle trail blazes. I saw noth­ing in front of me but a dirty white ex­panse of hard, icy snow that lost it­self in the con­dens­ing mist. Be­cause it was grow­ing dark and the clouds more omi­nous, I had to tell my­self out loud, over and over again, “Calm down. All along you saw other fresh boot prints in the trail of peo­ple ahead of you to­day. Just take the time to cast around and find the trail again.” Stum­bling over rocks and tufts of grass I fi­nally found a dim line of red-​​dyed sand that had been laid down by a trail main­te­nance crew across the sur­face of the ice field. I gin­gerly placed my feet on the snow and tip­toed to­ward the ridge above.

A dead Lesser Japan­ese Shrew-​​Mole ( Urotrichus pilirostris ), en­demic to Japan and found only up at higher al­ti­tudes in the moun­tains. I’ve rarely had a chance to get such a close look at an an­i­mal most peo­ple don’t even know exists.

This brings the story back to the be­gin­ning when the thun­der­clouds rolled in. The day’s walk had taken four hours longer than planned and I ar­rived in camp in a pour­ing del­uge. Every­thing got wet and the camp­site was a quag­mire of run­ning mud. To my dis­may I dis­cov­ered that the tent leaked like a sieve and to stay warm and dry I re­sorted to cov­er­ing my sleep­ing bag with my rain gear. Most of the night was spent spong­ing up pool­ing wa­ter and wip­ing down the tent walls. In the mid­dle of the night, with the thun­der clap­ping right over the camp­site, I felt as if I were trapped in some B-​​rated hor­ror movie us­ing Chi­nese wa­ter tor­ture by drip­ping the wa­ter onto my head from the soaked seams. It wasn’t a mat­ter of fear­ing for my life, but more of en­dur­ing the mis­ery of night­long dis­com­fort and sleep de­pri­va­tion. I dozed off just as the rain let up near dawn. The camp be­gan to wake up then, every­one else well-​​rested from hol­ing up in their snug, dry shelters.

The high­light of the morn­ing was greet­ing Eng­lish­man Sam Short, who had ar­rived the same time as I the evening be­fore. We both had a good laugh at the events of the night. Later on the trail, even though I had left two hours be­fore him, Sam lo­co­mo­ti­vated right past me, churn­ing up the trail like a moun­tain goat and leav­ing be­hind a trail of dazed hik­ers who down the trail later mar­veled to me at his speed. “Do all you for­eign­ers have such won­der­fully long legs?” an el­derly woman re­marked to me. “If you ask me,” grum­bled a middle-​​aged man who had fallen far be­hind his wife wait­ing for him at the sum­mit, “I don’t come to these moun­tains to go speed­ing along the trails like some race car dri­ver.” Sam must have cov­ered twice as much dis­tance as I did that day.

One of my fa­vorite places in all of Japan, the hang­ing val­ley of Kurobe­goro. It was in­spi­ra­tion for the imag­i­nary world of a children’s book I am writ­ing, “Let­ters from the Isle of Wake”. At the base of that lump you see there in the mid­dle of the pic­ture sits the house of Akyakya Monee, who knits sweaters made from mist and dew. Fur­ther up the ridge wan­ders crazy Saury Greapes, whose beard is so long he wraps it around his head. And, out of sight in the pic­ture, the cliff with the long pro­boscis is the head of sleep­ing Sub­u­umbe, whose gi­ant body makes up the whole val­ley and is­land. One day I have to go to Kure­be­goro and just sit there for two or three whole days, with no plans but to sim­ply lis­ten and look.

I wish I knew more about am­phib­ians, or at least had a field guide to the species here in Japan. I haven’t a clue what this thumb-​​joint-​​sized fel­low is called.

Elfin­wood atop a boul­der in Kurobe­goro. The feath­ery streaks of clouds fore­tell the com­ing of rain in six to eight hours, but the rain never showed up. The sun burned all that bright blue day and every­where along the tail other hik­ers I met were smil­ing. One party of about 25 el­derly walk­ers who, led by a fit, sun­burned young man, were hik­ing for the first time in their lives, and they asked me to pose with all of them while the leader snapped our photo. The day was like a quiet cel­e­bra­tion of I know not what… per­haps sim­ply be­ing alive?

Arrange­ment of stones on the trail up to Kurobe Peak. The trail was so steep at one point that my hands were shak­ing. I spied this im­age right at the point where my ver­tigo kicked in, but stu­pidly I pulled out my cam­era and took the time to com­pose the pic­ture. I had to yell at my­self to stop look­ing for pho­tographs and take the drop be­low me seriously!

I was walk­ing along a level sec­tion of the trail when I rec­og­nized an out­crop­ping upon which, seven years ear­lier, my wife and I had eaten lunch. We had laughed that whole day, even along the hard­est stretches of the trail. To­day the sight of that out­crop­ping drove the feel­ings for my wife back up to the sur­face and churned in the pit of my stom­ach. I kept walk­ing, each step slower than the last, un­til I passed into an area alight with flow­ers. I gazed around me, look­ing at noth­ing in par­tic­u­lar, when all of a sud­den, out of nowhere it seemed, I burst out sob­bing. It came on in waves, so hard that I fell to my knees amidst the flow­ers. I couldn’t stop, in spite of be­ing half con­scious of the pos­si­bil­ity of other walk­ers ap­pear­ing along the trail. When I fi­nally man­aged to pull my­self to my feet I stum­bled along the trail still heav­ing sobs, clear­ing some in­vis­i­ble clot that had lodged it­self in my chest. I don’t know how long it was, per­haps fif­teen min­utes, when as sud­denly as it had come, like clouds open­ing, the cry­ing van­ished. The pull of the end of the trail lost its rel­e­vance, and in­stead I let my feet take their own baby steps through this in­dif­fer­ent wilder­ness. And I found com­fort in not wor­ry­ing about the end. All I needed right now I had with me right here. It was sim­ple, a pack, a shel­ter, some clothes on my back, some­thing to eat when I got hun­gry, and two pairs of still-​​serviceable legs. I was free to go where I wanted. It wasn’t as bad as I had imagined.

Creep­ing Pine on Ki­tanomata Peak thrive in the vi­o­lent winds of the alpine peaks, so much so that their trunks grow hor­i­zon­tally across the rocky soil and cre­ate shoulder-​​high forests that, if you hun­ker down, look and smell like minia­ture pine woods. All sorts of wildlife owe their lives to the shel­ter the creep­ing pine pro­vide. And were I ever to lose my shel­ter and get caught in a storm I, too, would seek a quiet spot out of the wind amidst their pro­tec­tive branches.

The field of flow­ers where I broke down cry­ing near the end of the walk. Some places have that ef­fect, to call to you when you least expect.