Sara Backer's Blog, page 29

Feet on the ground, head in the clouds

On a rare clear day, this is what I could see from my front balcony. The clay tile roof is the local branch of a bank. As Mr. Eguchi said (ch. 37): "Feet on the ground, head in the clouds. That is the way to be." I am competent at the latter, but often challenged by the former. I wasn't sure my feet could carry me to the 3776 meter (12,388 ft.) summit but I was going to try.

"We'll take this one to the moon!" (Mr. Eguchi, Chapter 1)

It's been a busy week as pre-publication interest in American Fuji is rising, but stay tuned for a series of posts about my midnight hike up Mt. Fuji to coincide with the anniversary of that event--which also happens to be the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Do you remember?

Tatami

Here is the floor of the tatami room in my 2DK apartment. (2DK is shorthand for two rooms plus a dining kitchen.) Floors are measured by the number of mats. My bedroom was 6 mats. I slept on a futon. Tatami is springy, so futons are more comfortable than they are on American hard floors. However, the straw does harbor crickets and earwigs from time to time. One of my favorite short poems is by Issa:
Cricket, be careful! I'm rolling over!

Kobayahi Issa, translated by Robert Bly

Where American Fuji began

This is the "Western room" of my apartment, named for the hardwood floor. It was the same size as my tatami (traditional) room, 6 mats. A mat is roughly 1 meter by 2 meters. I had to buy a special transformer for my computer to convert 120 volts to 100 volts. Most U. S. electronics will work good enough for jazz, but computers are sensitive. After a year of being underpowered, my computer data was scrambled and I lost all my files. Shigata ga nai. What else could I do but start the novel

Lost wish

Last night, I tied my Tanabata wish to my plum tree, but it rained and I couldn't see any stars. The Japanese word for rain is ame. The kanji for ame is one of my favorites, resembling rain slanting down through a window.

Two Stars

The Tamiya plastic model factory in Shizuoka was my landmark for finding my way back to my neighborhood, just as Alex Thorn did in Chapter 6. I always wondered if their two-star logo related to Tanabata. Surprisingly, this photo reminds me of another place I lived that was about 5,000 miles away: San Luis Obispo, California. Californians, do you agree?

Tanabata: the Star Festival

Tanabata, or the Star Festival (July 7th), celebrates the story of two lovers, a cowherd (represented by the star Altair) and a weaver (Vega) who are separated by the Milky Way and allowed to meet only once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th month. People writes wishes on strips of paper and hang them on bamboo branches. If the night sky is clear enough to see the two stars, your wish comes true.
Tanabata is my favorite Japanese holiday and American Fuji is my version of the Tanabata story. What

Art can be dangerous

Just as Gaby had her favorite Chinese scroll, I had mine. Mine is not peonies, but a landscape featuring a poet (in scarlet) and friends admiring a waterfall. I bought the scroll on vacation in Hong Kong and it didn't fit any allowable luggage size. Fortunately, air travel was not as paranoid then as it is now and I was able to take it carry-on and store it in the area for first-class passengers' umbrellas. Customs officials in Hong Kong and Japan both opened it, unrolled it, and admired it befo

Quiet Hill

Shizuoka means quiet hill (shizu = quiet and oka = hill) but it was a steep hill to climb every day to the humanities building of the university perched on a hillside. (Unlike Gaby Stanton, I didn't own a car.) None of the U. S. colleges I've taught at have had comparable views. Here, from the top down, is a view of Mt. Fuji from a field higher up the hill from the campus, a view of the Japan Alps to the north from the "lightning" steps halfway to the top, and the view of the Pacific Ocean to t

Tsuyu

Japan has five seasons and June is the rainy season, bringing flash floods, damp laundry, mold, and delicious tender warabi mochi (rolled in crushed peanuts). I don't know why warabi mochi is seasonal, but you can only get it in tsuyu.
Here is a haiku I wrote to honor the rainy season in New Hampshire, too.

Damp bath towels sulk.

The big fan churns, exhausted.

Warm rain slaps green plums.

c. Sara Backer 2009