雪 (yuki)

Temple in the snow

white snow replaces white gravel, soft-hard

falling snow plays with time, slowing it

focus shifts, depths change

contrasts

the rocks slowly disappear

following the snow with your eyes

weightlessness, rising

this without sound

then the sun, a hot white spot

through the clouds

colors adjust

and the melt begins

trees remove their blanket

the temple transformed (again)

the end of this act

now captured

Ganjitsu rituals

The second time around.  For every experience there is a first time - your first day of school, your first goal in a soccer match, your first kiss, etc.  Everything that follows is always slightly less dazzling because it is already familiar.  But with familiarity traditions and rituals are established.

Last year I celebrated the new year at Matsunoo Taisha just up the river from my home.  Because I was so moved by this experience I decided to do the same again this year.  After breakfast I walked the 3 1/2 kilometers from Katsura to this Shinto shrine.  The long walk along the river through the mostly fallow farmland was quiet and meditative.  It's easy to drift and become reflective in such an environment.

Matsunoo Taisha was bustling, families eating, drinking and enjoying the New Year's Day customs.  Like the people around me I went through my own ritual, more or less mimicking last year: washing my hands at the chozuya (ablution fountain), buying an omikuji (fortune), drinking kinpaku miki (blessed gold leaf sake) from a masu (square-shaped wooden cup), eating yakisoba, grilled mitarashi dango and bebīkasutera from the many yatai (food stalls).

Again, I found myself drawn to the bonfire.  The heat of the fire and the sake had a  mesmerizing effect.  The smoke and ash swirled around; so too did my thoughts.

I don't believe any ritual however solemn or reverent can alter the course of one's life.  While life’s trajectory remains a mystery, we can nonetheless take comfort in these customs.  God only knows how long I'll be in Japan.  But as long as I am here I'll spend every Ganjitsu (New Year's Day) at Matsunoo Taisha.

Omisoka capsule

I returned from Los Angeles on a late flight.  Tokyo was dead.  I was surprised.  I had expected a different kind of New Year's Eve revelry than Kyoto, something more like New York.  Maybe around Shibuya there was more life.  Not in Shinbashi.

I checked into my little hotel, or rather, my little room in an average-sized hotel.  When most people think of a "capsule hotel" images of Japanese businessmen tucked into a wall of beds usually comes to mind, something like a morgue for the living.  First Cabin Atagoyama thankfully was not that.  It was a stylish, compact accommodation that hovers somewhere between a ship cabin and a college dormitory.  

After getting my room key and a brief explanation in very good English about where things were and how to use them I went up to the Men only floor.  Yes, the floors are segregated.  No canoodling here; this is not a "love hotel".

I couldn't help but notice the similarity to a storage facility: a map to locate your "cabin" was just beyond the touch-key sliding glass door.   Rather than a door there was a rigid, accordion curtain, like the room dividers you might find in a school or hospital.  This slid open to expose the entire room.  I wondered why they offered earplugs when I was checking in.  Now I knew.  I was really too tired, hungry and dirty to care.

I checked my watch.  30 minutes till midnight.  I freshened up and dashed out to find a place to get a bite to eat and a drink to ring in the new year.  The streets were dark and quiet.  Down one street a massage girl came onto me.  She seemed to be the only one out, the only one open for business.

I found a warm, well-lit cafe and sat down for a beer and sushi.  The waitress rang a Salvation Army Santa-style bell at midnight and poured a round of sake for everyone.  At last, I thought, things are going to pick up.  Alas, after the sake and a polite exchange of "akemashite omedeto" nothing more happened, the energy remained just above the lowest setting.

I drank my beer and the free sake and left, the promise of a bed and some sleep too great a lure.