Go West

After a couple years as a practicing nomad, I thought that things would slow down after setting up my yurt in the Kyo. This fall, it doesn't seem so. Besides repeated commutes to Tokyo every few weeks for yoga training, I also took a couple trips out to Western Japan. In mid-October, I took a overnight trip to the 'Nog to visit my son Kenshiro's grave and to deal with some baggage, both figuratively and literally.
Last week, MatsuMiki and I spent the weekend in Hiroshima. Saturday afternoon we crossed over into Yamaguchi for my first ever visit to Iwakuni, drifting up and across the famous bridge like Mary Poppins, following the direction of our raised umbrellas. We carried on into the heavy seasonal rain, into the mountains to the lair of bandits. Sanzoku is a series of ramshakle buildings built along a small stream which leads to a small shrine. We settled into the loft of one of these buildings, marvelling at the dexterity of the servers who ducked under the thick roof beams taken from a tree many centuries old. We ate massive chicken haunches off the bone like 'Enry the Eighth. I was, I was.
We saved some room for sukiyaki, served up by MatsuMiki's mom back in Hiroshima. The food theme carried over to the next day, where we had a lunch date out on Nomijima, the island where MatsuMiki grew up. As the ferry cut through water both above and below decks, my thoughts were less on my stomach and more on the poetry of Donald Richie. Thus we sailed on into the realm of pirates and the Heike, their once terrifying faces now expressionless in death.


On the turntable: Bob Dylan, "Blues"
On the nighttable: John Carroll, "Lightning in the Void"