It’s 34°F on the side of the road so we board the first bus that comes. It’s the wrong one but it’s already here, and we’re eager to get out of the cold. The sun has set too early, the temperature has dropped. All the tourists have gone. The curve of the lake where the ryōkans congregate is sparkling with little lights that reflect on the dark water. It’s not calm; there’s a sigh of wind. The water ripples and so do the lights.
The mountain is hiding in the backdrop of the town. A mountain whose name, according to an old folk claim, used to be written as 不二, the kanji for not and two. Not two. Only one. Without equal; unparalleled. Albeit a groundless claim, I have a personal attachment and preference to it. On an overcast night that hides the moon, like tonight, if I strain my eyes just right I could see the mountain’s perfect cone shape with its distinctive snowcap, just a darker shadow set against the lighter dark of the night sky. (Pft. “Lighter dark” — what a paradox.)
We get off the bus that’s the wrong bus but which still took us to the same direction only more expensive. It drops us in the middle of a lonely residential street then leaves, heading up towards the hairpin roads of the nearby mountain ranges: smaller ones, paralleled. Once the bus is gone the quiet settles, but there are still the hushed sounds of dinner if we listen closely, the noise of the living stifled behind shutters and closed doors of the houses around us. The Japanese call these sounds 生活音: daily life noise. We begin to walk in the ominous shadows, towards the light of an isolated convenience store, its illuminated sign like a lighthouse beacon in the night.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.
Jack Gilbert, ”A Brief For The Defense”
At the end of this little dark road is a hōtō place, a warm promise in wood beams and airy tatami nooks and rickety sliding doors. It’s much less busy than it had been at lunchtime. There are only a few long tables occupied; a large space heater stands patronizing in the middle, its coils glowing amber-red as it warms the paneled room. Waitstaff yell orders in the air with hoarse voices. Then, if we’re patient, mini iron cauldrons of hōtō would soon be brought out from the kitchen, coming out like a parade, a pot carried on each hand and covered with the traditional wooden lid. These are his-and-hers because it’s one of those things I’m not sharing. We lift the lids, our faces assaulted by hot steam. Inside is a still-bubbling creamy soup with thick, chewy udon noodles and local vegetables: kabocha, string beans, carrots, cabbage. Fried tofu pouches that soak up everything. It’s served boiling and would scald us if we’re not careful, and I’m never careful. We pull back our sleeves, arm ourselves with chopsticks and wooden spoon-ladles the shape of clamshells. On the table is a porcelain figurine of the mountain, and if we lift its cone top we can get some shichimi. Everyone is bent over their individual cauldrons; snatches of conversations mingled with slurping and huffing and puffing. Winter coats and scarves are shed off little by little, upper lips form beads of sweat, cheeks flush red.
Like most indulgent things it’s over in an instant, setting aside the fact that my husband and I have a shared habit of eating too fast; something that we laugh at, try to fix, but always surrender reflexively to like breathing. When we come out of the restaurant I’m clutching my very own porcealin figurine of the mountain in bubble wrap.
With gratified soup bellies we wait at an even darker hour on an even lonelier side of the road for the wrong bus to pass again. It’s behind schedule as it navigates the treacherous mountain roads. Our ryōkan greets us with its warm, quiet lobby, like a mother waiting for a late child. We trudge up to our room, bodies achy and stiff from the cold. Then we strip off our heavy winter clothes, rinse quickly in the shower. We lower ourselves into the open-air hot spring bath. The water is just under boiled lobster, but we get used to it. The freezing air pierces our exposed skin but we get used to that, too, and soon after there would be a balance in the temperature, a sort of clarity. As we soften like vegetables in hōtō soup, we look out past the balcony railing, at the silhouette of the unparalleled mountain across the lake.
TINY WORRIES 