Liberation day: my unilateral declaration of independence was no walk in the park

Yesterday was an interesting day. Got up, resigned my job of 34 years, went for a mental health/decompression walk, got lost in a primeval forest, ended up blundering around in the rain and the dark wondering whether I would see my cats again. 

It has been a long time coming, this resignation. My day job over the years has paid my way and corroded my soul to unrecognisable rust-bones sinking in toxic sludge, under fume-belching machines on a hill of cracked skulls. I am not going to share in this space the mental debilitation that company brought me to, but it was, well, real and alarming. I was, on a monthly basis, exchanging mental health for a pay cheque. As many of us do.

A bright future if I survive

There certainly was no future there, and dismally, there never had been. It was an employment made of necessity, where on the best of days the employees are herded like hapless minions to make profits for the implacably incapable owners. HQ is a grey monument to Dunning-Kruger syndrome. 

I’m not saying the environment at HQ was toxic, but the sign on the door read: “Abandon Soap, All Ye Who Enter Here.” 

This spring, certain threads came together that allowed me to think of getting out on my terms in my own time, so I balled up my little hands and screwed up my eyes, and screamed and jumped. 

So that was yesterday morning. This was a huge thing for me. Thirty-four years of That Place, and now striking out on my own for an entirely different life. 

I had Liberation Day all planned out. I send the letter, do the bureaucracy, then head out to one of my favourite spots for a mental health walk and to start the decompression process. Nara park, and especially a walk in Kasugayama Primeval Forest, ending up — and this is crucial — at Sarusawa pond under the pagoda of Kofukuji with beer and kebab by the water. This is where I feel serene (despite the place being swamped with tourists). 

I made it to the top of mount Wakakusa with its expansive views of Nara and the nearby hills. I was full of oxygen and anticipation from the walk. Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Wanderer above a Sea of Fog came to mind. That was me!

A perfect day! 

Until I took a wrong turn in the forest. 

I would like to stress to readers who do not know Kasugayama forest how difficult it is to take a wrong turn. The place is managed and maintained, the trails are almost roads, there are signposts and you are on the edge of an actual city. But I managed it. 

There are monsters in the forest

I marched on with great confidence feeling the moment, feeling the metaphor for my new life. 

Until I realised that I had been walking an awful long time, we were running out of afternoon, but not running out of road. 

Things started to happen. It clouded over — rain was imminent. There was no cellphone signal. No coverage. Which meant no Google Map or whatever. Not that Google Maps is ever useful on the trails in Japan. The app usually just shows you as a glowing blue blob in a sea of undifferentiated green. In addition, Google Maps had me spinning slowly on my own thumb. This was counterintuitive: I knew where my thumb was, and judging from the single path, which clearly knew where it was going even if I didn’t, I wasn’t rotating. But the app is always right, right? Even when there is no signal, which ought to have been a giveaway. So I doubled back. And then doubled forward again. I doubled and dithered and fretted. 

It was dark. It was raining. Had I inadvertently strayed into North Korea? The beer at Sarusawa seemed a long way away.  

Jizo shrine to lost children, Kasaguyama forest, Nara

I came across a lonely and affecting jizo shrine, a memorial to children that have passed away, but which may as well have been a shrine to the pathetic fallen traveller. 

Things crashed about in the underbrush. Probably just deer, but could have been tengu or frumious bandersnatches. 

The reader who is alert to metaphors, or even augurs — and is there any other kind of reader? — will have seen by now where this is going. 

Yes, I have set off with purpose and confidence on a new journey in life, sure of where I was going, looking forward to the adventures on the way, only to have become lost, disoriented and soaking wet while Mrs Page asked me by text whether she ought to call the police to come and find me. 

Well, I didn’t die, I wasn’t eaten, I didn’t end up living in a cave like the wild man of the forest for twenty years. I eventually found my way out of the woods and all the way to Sarusawa pond, where, despite the tipping rain, I did in fact quaff a bit of beer under my umbrella. 

Now, metaphor people, how does that defiant beer in the rain change the narrative? Was it resolution in the face of adversity or the petulance of an alcoholic whose parade has just been well and truly pissed on? 

Tune in next post to find out!

This story is also on Substack, where you can see more words by Chris Page.

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