Gentle Reader,
I once spent three weeks amongst the beautiful temples and snow-capped mountains of the Japanese archipelago. There was a stillness there and a civilising politeness which made me think of bygone times, as if this were a society that had been preserved in amber and reanimated, made navigable.
I saw many interesting things there and I ate lots of good food and read some of the history. I took in as much as I could yet, in the end, the memory of most of those experiences faded and became imprints of the originals, with the exception of two images which remain very clear to me.
The first is a teahouse. I had walked a beaten path through the woods until I came to a little thatched building which, somewhat ramshackle in form, nonetheless recalled a temple or holy place – then I knew I had arrived. In the teahouse almost everyone was sitting on the floor – a custom which ideologically I admire but which my famously stiff muscles cannot abide by – and I took a chair. The others sat cross-legged before their wooden tables, sipping their tea ceremoniously and speaking their melodic and unintelligible tones. I settled back into my seat and I looked back out through the entranceway where the green of the forest was visible. It felt very natural and I began to feel my body as it folded away its resistances, at least for a time. Have you ever felt a fatigue that is pleasant? The weariness after a day of motion, of using your muscles – it came on me, stirring a contentedness within…
The second image: a terrace in the hills which gave a view of Mount Fuji. I had booked a hostel without much consideration and I found myself labouring up a hill with a heavy rucksack on my back after a long train journey. The hostel was on the side of the hill and inside you had to take your shoes off and put them in a little nook with a number on it. Downstairs there was a natural hot spring, or onsen, and upstairs there was a common area which had board games and beanbags to sit on and backrests of sorts which allowed you to sit on the floor again. Beyond that was the terrace which I remember very clearly. It had a hammock and chairs but the real beauty was the view which delved into the green mountainous forest. I sat there and heard the sighing of the trees and the calls of animals which I did not recognise yet yearned to know, and I listened to the pitter patter of the rain. I saw that Japan was very green, just like home, but I could not have been home because of the huge mountain and the very gnarly tree which stood just beyond the terrace and which had a very oriental look about it.
There was a peace there and in the cafe which I have unknowingly been seeking since then, a desire to feel the call of the wild, not in a dangerous way, but in the most gentle and most restful way imaginable.
Some feelings can creep under your skin, can compel you secretly and silently at the level of the lizard brain which does not speak or languify, which does not require recourse to verbalisations or other such modern artifices. It cannot be coerced or cajoled because there are parts of ourselves which we cannot master.
Yet they move us. I seek that feeling of tranquility – I would distill it down and bottle it if I could. Then I would carry it with me, and at dawn I would scatter it over the caul of the morning or in the evenings I would uncork it and let it diffuse gently into the atmosphere. I would have it always at my fingertips – that way, it would follow me always with its spectral glow, and I would never grow tired of its magic.
I really like your phrasing and turn-of-phrases.