Internet and Recession

January 29, 2009 | Laughing Knees | 8 Comments 

This is a truly chill­ing re­port. As some­one alone here in Japan I worry what will hap­pen if things get re­ally bad. How will I sur­vive with­out close fam­ily and friends to pro­tect me and me help to pro­tect them? I’m ter­ri­fied of things get­ting so bad that I can’t buy or ob­tain in­sulin to keep me alive…

I’d like to make a proposal:

If this re­ces­sion turns into a world­wide de­pres­sion the only way most of us will sur­vive will be to band to­gether and help each other out. Try­ing to go this alone is folly. Since we are al­ready aware that some­thing is afoot and have this in­ter­net con­nec­tion (for now… it, too, may not sur­vive the on­slaught) to or­ga­nize some­thing, would it make sense to start gath­er­ing groups of trusted peo­ple now to pre­pare for the worst? Per­haps put to­gether a home­page for lo­cal groups to gather and or­ga­nize into dif­fer­ent lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties where they can share in­for­ma­tion and plans? Even if just a false alarm, hav­ing the plans in place could make all the difference.

I’d also like to pro­pose groups of peo­ple or­ga­niz­ing in-​​group fi­nan­cial sur­vival in­sur­ance or some such (I don’t know the jar­gon at all) to help each other get through the worst.

When I was young I of­ten lis­tened to my Ger­man grand­par­ents and great aunt talk of the great de­pres­sion and Sec­ond World War and how they man­aged to get through the hard times. Al­most al­ways it re­volved around fam­i­lies and friends band­ing to­gether, es­chew­ing tra­di­tional nu­clear fam­ily se­tups in fa­vor of every­one help­ing out ac­cord­ing each individual’s best abil­i­ties. Down in the base­ment of the apart­ment they hoarded moun­tains of canned food and coal so that they could sur­vive months with­out worry of starv­ing or freez­ing dur­ing the hard win­ters. Strangers were of­ten wel­comed into homes for shel­ter and once my grand­par­ents har­bored a fam­ily of Jews all of whom ex­cept one, un­for­tu­nately, were dis­cov­ered by the Gestapo and sent, never to re­turn, to Bergen Belsen, the con­cen­tra­tion camp just north of my home­town Hannover.

I’ve al­ways strongly felt that this money-​​focused world econ­omy we have is the worst pos­si­ble prag­matic model for a so­ci­ety. It in­her­ently teeters on chance, in much the same way a gam­bler hopes that his luck will hold out. Most peo­ple would not hes­i­tate to dis­count a gambler’s claim that gam­bling is sound way to make a liv­ing, and yet we ac­cept with­out much ques­tion a world­wide econ­omy that ba­si­cally is a huge fran­chise of chance games. Co­op­er­a­tion and a fo­cus on com­mu­nity ef­fort truly is the only way a so­ci­ety can hope to sus­tain it­self so­cially, eco­nom­i­cally, en­vi­ron­men­tally, even spir­i­tu­ally. Much as Marx is crit­i­cized, he re­ally made some very good points. And those na­tions which adopted his phi­los­o­phy never truly car­ried it out; they twisted it into some­thing dra­con­ian and fright­ful… not at all what Marx en­vi­sioned. If any­thing Marx’s vi­sion very closely re­sem­bles the teach­ings of Christ: Do unto oth­ers… Help thy neighbor…

Any­way, here we are star­ing at this mon­ster of a prob­lem. Is there a way we can all join hands and face it together?

Wind and Snow

January 15, 2009 | Laughing Knees | 11 Comments 

Her words still ring in my ears as I step off the rope­way onto the freez­ing, windswept plateau of the Pi­la­tus ter­mi­nal at the north­ern end of the Yat­sug­atake range. “I LOVE YOU, Miguel!” It is a con­fir­ma­tion of all I had been look­ing for and wait­ing for over the last few months, a state­ment that stills my stormy heart and promises to wait for me when I de­scend back to the world of trains and sched­ules and meet­ings and sullen stu­dents. We have over­come the woes of dis­tance and newly im­mersed in­ti­macy, at last an­nounc­ing that we are truly together.

I lower my pack and sur­vey the trails. Skiers up from the rope­way wait in line for head of the trail, to fly down the artificially-​​made snow to the snow­less plain be­low. Though the ther­mome­ter reads –15ºC and it is early Jan­u­ary, hardly any snow cov­ers these alpine heights. The snow­pack is so hard that walk­ing in my run­ning shoes is as easy as jog­ging along a beach. I re­move my mit­tens from my pack, but leave the over­boots in­side and the snow­shoes lashed to the front. I glance up at the bald­ing white pâté of the hill over­look­ing the plateau. A sharp, icy blue wind sweeps down from heights and fin­gers my col­lar. I laugh. Those old feisty fin­gers, ready to strip me bare and rush away with my shel­ter and food!

A voice calls out from be­hind me, nam­ing me. “Miguel? Miguel from BPL?”

I shoot my head around, com­pletely not ex­pect­ing that. Two Japan­ese walk­ers, donned in ultra-​​lightweight gear stand there grin­ning. I have no idea who they are.

“You don’t know us, but we know you from the Back­pack­ing Light site. Miguel, right?”

I nod in con­fu­sion. “How do you know me?”

“You’re fa­mous in Japan! Every­one who does ul­tra­light hik­ing in Japan knows you.”

“Re­ally?” I pause. “Really???”

We in­tro­duce our­selves (sorry, guys, I didn’t catch your names and though I’ve looked I can’t find it on the Japan­ese UL sites. If you’re there please con­tact me!…ごめんなさい。ピラタスで話した時ちゃんと名前を聞き取らなかったのです。もしこのサイトに訪ねたらぜひ名前をもう一度教えてください！かんべん、かんべん！) and talk about Mr. Tera­sawa and Mr. Tsuchiya, two peo­ple all three of us know who have done a lot to in­tro­duce ul­tra­light con­cepts to Japan. They laugh and point at my pack, a spe­cial­ized har­ness with wa­ter­proof dry­sack, in­stead of a tra­di­tional back­pack: “Is that the BPL Arc­tic Pack?”

I nod.

One of them shakes his head and ap­proaches with his cam­era. “May I take a pic­ture of it? I’ve never seen one in per­son before.”

I laugh in turn. “We UL en­thu­si­asts re­ally are crazy about light­weight gear, aren’t we!” I spy his own pack and laugh again. “Just as I thought. How did you sleep last night? Tent or tarp? Or bivy?”

“We used a tarp cou­pled with a bivy. It went down to about –20 last night and I was wor­ried that our light­weight gear wouldn’t be enough, but I was sur­prised that by us­ing my cloth­ing sys­tem with the lay­ered bed­ding sys­tem I was ac­tu­ally very warm.” He eyes my pack again, “What about you? How are you camping?”

I shake my head in em­bar­rass­ment, “I’m not camp­ing. I’m stay­ing at a moun­tain hut.”

Both their eyes pop. “You’re kidding!”

“I know, I know. Now my rep­u­ta­tion in Japan is shot.”

“No, not that bad. At least you’re wear­ing run­ning shoes!” They point at my light hik­ers. “No one but an ul­tra­lighter would do that on a win­ter moun­tain!” They laugh and nod to each other.

We shake hands, take a group shot, and promise to con­tact one an­other and get a whole band of UL peo­ple to­gether in Tokyo some time, per­haps to go for a camp out here or in Oku­tama, west Tokyo. They head north to­wards Fu­tago Ike (Twin Ponds) and I watch their sil­hou­ettes climb the through the rock gar­den and dis­ap­pear at the crest.

The sun is al­ready low­er­ing to­ward the west and day walk­ers and skiers have be­gun to thin out. I have about three hours un­til sundown.

Only a few hun­dred me­ters out of earshot of the rope­way the for­est set­tles into a deep hush. My shoes creak through the dry snow and my breath sounds loud amidst the snow laden fronds of the larches that line the path. Foot­prints from walk­ers who had passed all day break through the snow along the trail and tell sto­ries of where they were go­ing or how they were feel­ing. One set of snow­shoe tracks breaks away from the main trail and wan­ders for a bit amidst the dark trunks of the larch for­est be­fore be­ing forced back to the main trail by the thick­ness of the brush. Criss­cross­ing the hu­man tracks I can make out hare tracks, er­mine tracks, Japan­ese marten tracks, and an­other one that I can’t iden­tify. Noth­ing seems to be hap­pen­ing as I plow through the land­scape, but the tracks tell a dif­fer­ent story. Life goes on all around and be­ings live out their fam­ily stories.

The light be­gins to fail and the shad­ows clench me in the gath­er­ing cold. With the light go­ing so flees my day­time eu­pho­ria and the con­cerns about reach­ing the hut take over. My thoughts re­turn to Y. and all the tri­als we’ve been through over the last few months. While it is true that she had told me that our re­la­tion­ship was sound, she had said the same thing only three weeks ear­lier, be­fore her bout of si­lence. Just the fact that she can­not join me on this walk, like on al­most every en­deavor we talked to do­ing to­gether, en­sures that doubts be­gin to creep in again. I stop in a clear­ing and watch the fiery or­ange alpen­glow touch the last brow of peak to the east, while stand­ing down here in this blue for­get­ful­ness. I feel small and vul­ner­a­ble, to­tally alien to this snowy world. And Y., far away, do­ing hol­i­day part-​​time work and not get­ting enough sleep, and feel­ing cold and frus­trated as the wind blows through the sta­tion where she works, and los­ing con­fi­dence in her abil­ity to keep a re­la­tion­ship go­ing… Why was I not there, be­side her, keep­ing her warm? Why all this dis­tance? Why the va­garies of chance, that we would fall in love, only to en­counter a mine­field of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and lin­ger­ing ef­fects of past relationships?

I long to call her, hear her voice, coun­ter­bal­ance the si­lence and cold of these woods, but there is no re­cep­tion. And I be­gin to won­der what that, “I love you” meant. It sounds like an echo, a sub­lime way of say­ing good bye.

The trail takes me up a ridge and drops into a bowl of rocks where it seems the short­ened trees gather for a mo­tion­less con­fer­ence. When I en­ter the space I al­most feel like an in­truder and a vague anx­i­ety stirs some­where in the cen­ter. I don my snow­shoes when the trail be­gins to get icy so as to get the trac­tion of the snow­shoe cram­pons. Halfway down the de­scent the straps of the old snow­shoes snap and ren­der them use­less. The light con­tin­ues to fall and I scram­ble through the rises and falls, try­ing to keep from tak­ing a spill on every de­scent and rise. It is not a long way, thank good­ness, and I fi­nally make it to the ac­cess road that heads up to the hut. I aban­don the trail and huff it through the gloom un­til the fa­mil­iar pointed roof comes into view above the treetops.

The owner of the hut, a soft-​​voiced man in his for­ties, stokes the stove for me and of­fers me a cup of hot bar­ley tea. I grate­fully ac­cept and cup it in my palms. He hangs my gear on the rack over the stove and puts my bro­ken snow­shoes into the cor­ner. He pulls up a stool and sits across the ta­ble from me, sip­ping his own cup of tea.

“Is this your first time here?” he asks.

“No, I’ve been here many times, even in win­ter, but this is my first time to stay.”

“It’s a good place. Quiet and friendly. That’s why I stayed,” he said. “You just missed the crowds, though. Yes­ter­day there were more than fifty peo­ple here and it was full of mu­sic and laugh­ter. I think there will only be eight of you tonight, though.”

I sip my tea, pen­sive. Then af­ter I while I say, “The moun­tains are so beau­ti­ful, but with­out peo­ple you re­ally can’t live here, can you?”

He shakes his head. “We have to work to­gether to sur­vive here. The high moun­tains can be re­ally hard if you’re not careful.”

“Like re­la­tion­ships,” I mur­mur. He raises his eye­brows, con­fused. I shake my head. “I’ve re­cently got­ten in­volved with some­one and it is rocky and of­ten so easy to lose our way. Here I am with some­one and sup­posed to feel like I be­long and full of hope for the fu­ture, but in­stead I feel lonely most of the time. When I try harder to reach out, she draws away, un­will­ing to set the path to­gether. The harder I try to get closer the fur­ther away she seems to draw. I don’t know what to do.”

He nods and smiles, not know­ing what to say.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “Shouldn’t be talk­ing about things like that. We’ve never even met before.”

He leans for­ward and points at my cup. “An­other cup of tea?” He gets up and bus­tles about in the kitchen. He re­turns with big ket­tle and sets it down on the ta­ble. “Don’t think,” he says. “Have an­other cup of tea.” He pours more tea into my cup and smiles. “The fire is warm, no?” He nods and smiles again.

I wake from a deep sleep to the sound of laugh­ter out­side in the sub­zero night. Foggy-​​brained, I sit up and re­mem­ber that three of the lodgers had de­cided to get up at four in the morn­ing to look for a comet that only comes up on Jan­u­ary 3^rd. I pull back the cur­tain, but the win­dow pane is cov­ered in a thick layer of ice. I can make put a blurry wisp of light wav­ing in the black­ness of the win­dow. Laugh­ter again. And the sound of a door rolling shut.

I lie in the dark­ness of the room for a long time, de­bat­ing whether to face the freeze of the room or stay here un­der the blan­kets, warm. I rea­son that life is about get­ting up and get­ting out there, but that it is also about ly­ing a bit longer un­der the cov­ers and get­ting some proper sleep. But then I fig­ure that comets don’t come about very of­ten and I re­ally should get up and see one. So I haul the blan­ket off me and throw on my down jacket and march out of my room, down the dark hall­way, and down to the warm glow of the stove room. I pull on my run­ning shoes and, mak­ing the same racket with the door as the per­son ear­lier, I step out into the night.

First the cold. Hard and bit­ter and right down from the stars. I have for­got­ten my gloves so I stick my hands deep into my down jacket pock­ets. The air, when I look up, seems gelid, like a still lake, and be­yond it shine the stars. Thou­sands of them. All spilt across the vel­vet dress, so dis­tant and im­per­sonal that the cold seems per­fectly suited to their needs. Be­low them, on the dark hill­side, stands an al­most in­signif­i­cant lit­tle group of peo­ple, point­ing their pin­prick of a flash­light up at the heav­ens and re­mark­ing on the con­stel­la­tions. I shuf­fle through the snow and climb up to their look­out. Their flash­light swings down to iden­tify me then back up at the stars. I see shad­owy arms reach up and point. Voices mur­mur at close hand, punc­tu­ated by bursts of quiet laughter.

They never find the comet. We stand look­ing up un­til the cold fi­nally pen­e­trates our de­fenses and we all de­cide to head back to the stove room to warm up. We po­si­tion our­selves around the fire, putting our hands out to flames to re­ceive the bene­dic­tion of heat. The hut owner brings out a tray of cof­fee and bis­cuits and we sit around for hours, un­til dawn, dis­cussing Japan­ese youth, the ef­fects of the re­ces­sion, how to make a fire­brand, even the way to read a star map. At one point, not hav­ing an an­swer to a ques­tion, one of the hut helpers takes out her cell phone and con­nects it to a spe­cial­ized an­tenna, where she con­sults the in­ter­net. I ask if I might use the an­tenna to check for any mes­sages I have got­ten. They say sure.

I con­nect my cell phone and let the feel­ers scan the in­vis­i­ble voice­ways for word from Y. Noth­ing. The re­cep­ta­cle re­mains empty. Feel­ing like the man on the moon, I write a short mes­sage and send it out to her, cast­ing it into the dawn dark­ness, “I love you.” Let­ting it re­sound like an echo where no sound reverberates.

“I love you,” the mes­sage says. The words that draws to­gether the strings of the uni­verse and can make a mea­sured dif­fer­ence in the strength of even the tini­est beat­ing heart, if only it is heard.

The comet group stays awake un­til break­fast is ready and, still bleary-​​eyed, but full of laugh­ter, we sit over our bowls of miso soup and diced cab­bage and omelette and con­tinue our lively dis­cus­sion on all top­ics from the four cor­ners of the world. We get onto the topic of chil­dren, since one of the women there has only just re­cently started get­ting out­doors and the other mem­bers won­der how she man­ages to take care of her chil­dren while she’s out here. “Well, they’re older now and can more or less take care of them­selves,” she says. “But, I fig­ure it’s time my hus­band stay home some­times and give me the chance to do some of the things I love do­ing. I’ve al­ways wanted to go hik­ing in the moun­tains. I don’t want to get old and feel I haven’t done any­thing I wanted to do.” She beams. “Who would have thought I’d get up at 4:00 in the morn­ing in the moun­tains to go out­side to look for comets!”

I ask about chil­dren and if she thinks that when they are young it is im­pos­si­ble to do all these things to­gether. She thinks a mo­ment and shakes her head. “In fact, I think their lives are richer for the ex­pe­ri­ences and the chance to learn what the world is about. Learn­ing how to men­tally deal with climb­ing a moun­tain or rid­ing a bi­cy­cle long-​​distance or even put up a tent and sur­vive a storm all helps make you stronger and more con­fi­dent. My fam­ily did a lot of that when the kids were younger and I think the kids grew up with an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for what their abil­i­ties are. Not all of them like be­ing out­doors, but none of them is afraid of be­ing out there.”

The dishes are quickly cleared off the ta­ble and with a whisk of a towel the crumbs are wiped away and the com­pany dis­perses. Five min­utes af­ter the room was filled with the ban­ter of peo­ple whose eyes were bright with stars, the room re­turns to be­ing empty. I stum­ble up­stairs to the bed­room to pack and get ready for the walk out of the mountains.

While jog­ging along the trail in the late morn­ing sun, the heat re­flect­ing off the snow, my cell phone sud­denly vi­brates in my shoul­der strap pocket. I stop and pull it out. I press the open but­ton and check the mes­sage. One. From Y.

“If you have time, meet me at Kofu sta­tion around 1:50. Can’t wait to see you. I love you.”