Laughing Knees

For anyone who has had the experience of being stateless or drifting between nations not knowing where they might be allowed to stay, the news that I received from the Japan immigration office today, that my application for permanent residency was approved, will carry the familiar sense of relief that I am feeling today.

From a jet plane the Earth sits under the hard mirror of the sky. The Sun glares down, its one unblinking eye pitiless with power, seeing all, the vast film of water, air and rock. Indifference beats upon any harborer of precious fluids, hissing admonishments to turn tail and burrow into the nearest cleft. To a watcher in space the blue marble of the planet might at first seem stillborn, but if it watches carefully the swirling surface would give away the secret: like milk roiling in a cup of coffee clouds belie both a boiling heart and a mind fanning the idea of regeneration. The clouds themselves would give birth, like whales in an ocean of air.

Appropriately it is raining today. A sprinkly, spitting kind of rain that crackles upon the leaves, not a real threat to open windows or lithe grass stalks. The extended family of paper wasps, though, that have been building their little queendom under the lattice screen at the side of the garden, huddle against the paper of their nest and moon at the grey scene, too chilled to make the effort to check on their young.

My pack was heavier than I wanted when I set up on a two-day jaunt over the crest of Kumotori Mountain (Cloud-Grabber Mountain, at 2014 meters, the westernmost point of the municipality of Tokyo and the tallest mountain in the Kanto region) over the weekend.

Let me get this straight: I don’t hate Americans. I am angry at what the American government is doing and at those Americans who support it, but that doesn’t mean that I hate Americans, not even those who feel something had to be done about the New York tragedy.