The Ichikawa River winds its way slowly through my sleepy town, forcing houses and nature alike to crowd along its banks. As the sunlight bounces off the ripples in the water, I see small groups of orange and white koi gathered where the roadside trenches deliver the runoff to the river. The school choir sings softly down the corridor, all at once distant and near. That`s the thing about living in the mountains: the sun refracts and reflects off every bump and knoll, casting playful shadows over everything. One moment, the bridge is barely visible in the shade, the next, it is the house of the little old lady who sells shoes. I long to wander the strange roads, some only wide enough for a human to walk sideways on. But an important thoroughfare nonetheless: I see them every day, the smallest, oldest men and women I have ever seen carrying parcels and bags bigger than they are. I see these same men and women crouched over in the rice fields, carefully selecting each golden stalk for harvest. It looks like back-breaking work, and I feel guilty about jogging by without offering my help.
I like jogging here. The wind swoops down the ravine and forces the beads of sweat off my brow. Every once in a while I am joined by the cry of a hawk or the swoop of a crane from the river`s banks. I love it that when I jog past, the roar of the cicadas in the trees softens. I love it that the old men sitting on the benches cheer at me as I stumble by them. And every once in a while, I stumble upon a place where a human hand has touched nature in a gentle way. Once it was a mossy shrine, once it was a mysterious little stone pathway leading up into the dark, cool forest. Last night, as I was running on a little dirt path beside a golden rice field I saw it.
At first, it looked only like a fallen log, but as I neared, I saw that it was an old rope suspension bridge, obviously long forgotten. I slowed to a walk to cross the bridge: the wooden boards were moss covered and rotting, and while it wasn`t a long fall to the river, I thought I had better not assault the old walkway with the pounding of my feet. On the other side, I saw a stone pathway, and when I followed it into the dense forest, I discovered the treasure I had been seeking. In front of me, a moss-shrouded family grave plot stood. One corner of the stone foundation was clean, so I chose to rest there and ponder the events of my first few weeks in Japan. One image kept popping to mind - I will never forget where I was when the World Trade Centre came down.
The news is broadcast in English every night at 10pm - about 9am in New York. I had just returned from shopping, and decided to turn it on. All I saw was one tower of the Centre with smoke fuming from its sides. My first thought was that the news had been pre-empted for "Die Hard". The announcer came on and told us that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Centre and we were live via satellite. I wondered, "how could a pilot not see something as big as The World Trade Centre?". Then the second plane came in and crashed - from our angle, it looked like it was into the same building. After that, the nightmare unfolded. I raced to the phone to notify other foreign teachers in my area to turn on their TV`s - apparently I was the first to have seen it. Every one of them screamed "Oh my God!" and hung up the phone to call their families. I stayed up until 2am that night, watching the footage. In the morning, I anxiously reached for the English edition newspaper I subscribe to, only to find that there was not one mention of the event. Fair enough, I thought, they probably couldn`t get translators at 2am. I wondered how this would impact my colleagues at work, and was more than a little surprised to find them all in the office crowded around the TV set when I arrived. I think I spent all that day on the internet - chatting with friends and my sister, and searching CNN. The rest of that week was a blur of news reports tinted with an aura of shock. And here I am, sitting far, far away on the stone walls of the grave of someone`s ancestors.
Were these people around for WW2? So many people are comparing this to Pearl Harbour, maybe because that was the only other attack on American soil. Maybe it is more like Hiroshima. I don`t know - I am ignorant of that era. I do know that I felt a loss when those towers came down. Many non-Americans died there, so I felt it was an attack on the world. So many of the Americans here know someone who is missing in the aftermath. The news pumps in by the minute. Physically, I am about as far away as one could be from the action, but it feels closer to me than if I was sitting in my apartment in Vancouver. I don`t know what the world should do about it. I keep thinking that war is not the way, though. Like children in a fight on the playground, hitting back may make them feel better, but in the end, the fight just escalates and both people feel greater losses for it. I worry about the possibility of war. The Americans are more likely to fight with planes and missiles and ground troops. These suicidal terrorists would have no qualms about unleashing nuclear weapons on the world. Many people state that they don`t have nuclear warheads or weapons or armies, that they are just terrorists. To you I ask this: how do you think the terrorists thought the Americans would retaliate? They are ready, they have no fear and no repect for life, and that is why I am worried. I don`t know if the Earth could survive a nuclear war. My guess is that, like a dog with fleas, Mother Earth would shake us off her back. But I didn`t want to think of things like that just then. I wanted to concentrate on the feel of the moss under my feet - have you ever done that? It was soft and accepting and bounced back when I lift my foot. With this thought, I stood up. I took one last breath of that air tinged with pine, and made my way back across the bridge. This time I walked throught the rice field, as if to mark each step in my memory so I could return. I ran back along the Ichikawa River, past the hawks and the Crane, past the old toothless men who cheered once more as I passed, I ran past the old lady who ownes the shoe shop. She was meticulously sweeping her concrete entranceway. The children at the elementary school yelled "Konnichiwa, Sensei" as I I jogged by, and as I waved at them, I realized that in this sleepy town, at least, the world would go on as usual. It was founded in 807 AD. I guess that it has seen too much to be shocked by anything.