Do or die
This is a mountain blog now
By the eighth new moon of the year, it’s the full throng of summer.
This is my sixth summer in Japan, and the weather has bested me every year. In retaliation I shoot off a rant about how much this season sucks and then start making plans.
After the heat of the seventh new moon nearly over-baked me to an existentially dry limp biscuit, full of sandpaper and cigarette smoke, I shot out of the doubt and ennui like a waterfall. These days, Doing crowds out Thinking. The body moves enough and somehow the mind becomes quiet. Guys, why didn’t you tell me we could do that?
I’ve been trying to slow down the last year or so, questioning the aimless, pure accumulation of experience, but it hasn’t really stuck. I’ve got bruises in unthinkable places and bites that swell and recede with the hours, and I keep finding new remnants of a kiss from a jellyfish.
You go there, then you go there, then you climb that, then you swim in that, look at some rocks, then the sky, then you dance a bit, then you drink some stuff, play with a baby, then a dog, then you drive home and you sleep in a way that you never can after a day of “activity” at the computer.
The bird clamors, and the tree blinks with irritation.
I never know what to say when someone confesses to being an “overthinker.” I see a vast network of metaphors and images, relationships between people and paintings and politics, jokes and jealousy and gender, puns and weather and memory, overhead is the milky way in crystalline detail and below is a black hole through which will and resolution disappear. It’s what I think the internet and movies and people think a person on acid sees, except I’m sober and I’m just putting on my shoes ffs leave me alone.
At the same time I tend to underthink potential dangers presented by the external world. Sometimes, living in a country full of over-prepared people, neurotic signs, and bored authority figures, this causes friction: in a body of water or heading up a mountain someone invariably tries to block the way, telling me in no uncertain terms that what I’m doing is NG, No Good, dame, kinshi, muri, abunai, or simply, [arms crossed in an X]. There are jellyfish, or strong currents, or snow, or cracks in a glacier, or I don’t have the right crampons or an ice axe, or it’s late, or it’s windy, yes, thanks for the tip, ittekimaaaaaas.
Last Friday we left for the northern Japanese Alps. We were going to hike 白馬, meaning white horse, for reasons rumored to be related to snow and rice farmers and horse plows. And for reasons even Japan’s mountain nerds have yet to confirm, the kanji are pronounced both “shiro uma” and “hakuba,” the former for the peak itself and the latter for the name of the towns and places associated with it. 白馬 is one of Japan’s “100 famous mountains,” a completely subjective list drawn up by a mountaineer in the 1960s, and which has caught on as a kind of authoritative check list for Japan’s hikers. L is here to complete his 74th of the 100; I’m here because it’s too hot in my apartment.
We arrive at the top and settle our necks onto the silliest pillows I have ever seen. No one sleeps well. The next morning the weather is very bad, and half the group decides to go back the way we came, which is shorter by two hours and promises food and onsen on solid ground afterwards. The three remaining push forward into the wind, heading across the ridge to 鑓ヶ岳, Mt. Spear, although I don’t know why, it would not win any awards for pointiness.
The night before the two-day hike with the rotating cast of Doers, I sit. M, who can’t pick up a cup without an extended analysis before and after, is leading meditation. For 50 minutes, I surrender.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, climb the rope of your breath, it’s braided with love and fullness, and there’s also a thread of light pulling from the top of my head, I feel like it can lift me up, but no I need to stay grounded or I’m going to fly off this mountain ridge, I look ahead and the visibility is so poor that El just a couple meters ahead has disappeared into the gray, the wind here is too loud here for multiple streams of awareness, strong enough that if I lean against it, my body is suspended at an angle, tune into your arms, where, how are your elbows, I become very aware of my forearms, you carry so much stress for me, you do the most important work of my body every day, translating ideas into sentences, type-ity type type, all my thoughts and feelings flow through the blood of my wrists, otsukare sama, you must be so tired, just now I feel the shock on my right as I plant one hiking pole to the ground over and over to anchor me like a third leg, I’m dimly aware that the impact sends stress to my wrist, but we need to get off this path in one piece, I’m so sorry, thank you, focus on the heat coming out of your nostrils and touching your upper lip, my eyes are closed but they’re still trying to see the tiny space between these two essential orifices, it’s giving me a headache, I close my eyes on the ridge and exhale and feel no heat on my upper lip just that I could be whipped off the mountain and into the clouds, down, down, I know it won’t happen, the wind isn’t that strong, but it’s a little difficult to hear reason here, El turns back and asks if I want to walk between her and Jo, I say no, call her back, wait, I changed my mind, yes, please, I’m embarrassed, but I’m so small on this Earth, may you be happy, may you be happy, may you be happy, and then you say it back, we reach the final peak, hold onto the post that says 白馬鑓ヶ岳 - 2903m, it’s one of the types of meters I understand, just long enough for a selfie with no views, Jo, who’s barely spoken all morning, says, “let’s get the fuck out of here,” I hear a memory, and we climb down the other side of the mountain, small switch backs and forth, and with each step, the wind gets weaker, until I can hear normally again, El and I do a victory faff, I open my eyes and I’m sitting in a yoga studio in the city which smells like incense, and my vision is lined with gold thread.