June 2007
I live in a smallish japanese city named Kakegawa that lies two hours below Tokyo riding on the Shinkansen bullet train.  It is a fine place to experience this country; far enough from the concrete and fluorescent lights of big cities for the traditional Japan of rice farmers to exert a charming influence over the area yet close enough to urban hubs for pretty girls to still wear pointy shoes.

I moved to Japan from Seattle just over a month ago bringing with me a few changes of clothes, 8 good novels, one japanese dictionary, my laptop, and my running shoes, each of which was equally important.  I have been running seriously for a slight bit more than a year yet it has become a part of my life as much as anything else.  

The following is an amalgam of some runs I have taken since being in Japan as well as enough introspection for a much longer essay:

There is a rural highway that runs through the hills near my apartment.  It starts to the west and then arches up through mushrooming trees and eventually passes into a smaller town to the north-east.  Most of my runs lead to the road before too long.  There are few cars on the highway when I am there and I enjoy following its path as it winds through bushes and tea fields.  It is one hell of a scenic highway, though I think not unusual as such.  

The countryside of Japan is laced with sites of astounding and ancient beauty.  Those Japanese ink paintings depicting delightfully rounded trees set in nooks created by more slender and taller trees that reach up and up, and sturdy bamboo forests that lean out over ponds, and patches of pure, golden leaves that seem to burst from nowhere.  All those delicate and beautifully painted scenes are not, like I thought, works inspired by the japanese mindset and the mindset of its artists but rather are the cause of the mindset.  The minimalist brush stroke, the artistically bent lotus flower; just artists portraying what they see from their doors.  I even occasionally begin to see the foliage around me as a painting; imagining the swift and perfect strokes needed to create each tree limb and flower petal.  I watch as the colors blend together.  Every shade of green pushes out from the center of a hillside creating a lavish yet somehow formal impression like a japanese dinner table laden with its many delicious dishes, each set simply and precisely before you.  I know these things, can clearly picture these brilliant scenes because this is where I run.

When I come off of the highway I am at the top of a hill that looks out over Kakegawa city and all the small farms surrounding it.  On my left is a cemetery.  The perimeter of the cemetery is lined with cherry trees which turn inward at the entrance and dot the road leading beyond.  The graves are evenly spaced, clean, and frequently made of nice marble or some other stone which sparkles when the sun hits it.  In Japan cemeteries are often on the crests of hills overlooking the homes of a city, allowing the spirits to watch over their descendants.  To my right is another green tea field, not more than half the size of a football field.  Below the tea is an irrigation pond with wooden steps leading down to it and beyond that another tea field, followed by small farms and houses.

This is where I really go.  I mean go!  I lean forward, feet pounding the pavement; almost flying in between hits.  My left heel comes down and I roll my foot forward, pushing off with my toe as my right heel hits.  I am going fast; faster than bikes or cars or animals.  The birds eye me with envy as I streak past.  Then the best part.  As I am flying down this hill, hearing my feet hit, sucking in the air with massive, visceral breaths, it is, suddenly, snowing.  Snowing?  Snowing!  The sun is there, it is warm, and yet it is snowing white and now pink and now white again.  It is cherry blossom.  There is a dip in the hill to the east where the wind breaks through, pulling the loose blossoms from their trees and showering them upon me.  There must be no lovelier place to be, to run, than this.  There are places that are just as lovely, places that are different, but this is one of the perfect places where everything is there for you just how it should be and you still forget it every time and then are surprised when you see it again as if it were your first time seeing it and feeling it.

That is how a good run is.  Most are like that, starting in the morning or the afternoon with the sun warm and everything looking bright and reflective.  But there are the other ones.  Sometimes there are runs where go because I have to go, because I can't do anything else.  These are not in the sun in the morning and afternoon.  They are whenever.  They are at night, in the rain, and the city.

Once I went out late, maybe eleven or twelve, and ran past all the drunk businessmen and the girls with short skirts laughing shrill foreign laughs, and felt utterly alone.  Sometimes when one has gone an extended period of time unable to have a real conversation a mindset emerges wherein it is difficult to imagine any situation but that unwaveringly lonely one that suddenly seems to have been existence as long as is recallable.  It is perhaps made worse by the knowledge that there are people all around having casual conversations about new clothes and the quickest way to the next town and their favorite thing about spring or fall, and not realizing how precious those words are and not noticing as you run past.
  
I have heard that there are many runners in Japan.  In fact, I often imagine a day wherein I meet a local or two and we run together and that we cannot actually speak to each other does not matter because we are running and that is something that if you understand does not need punctuation with words.  Maybe eventually I learn Japanese, starting with only the essential running terms and phrases and building from there.  Regrettably, this has not yet happened.  Both of the running equipment companies Mizuno and Aesics are based in Japan and there are others that I hadn't heard of till here.

Supposedly there is even a marathon that goes right through the city I live in sometime in April or February.  Still, I have not seen these things: other runners, or races.  There was one time at the beginning of a run before I had left the city when I passed a man in his early twenties who was also running.  We both seemed to be warming up and neither of us looked tired.  I nodded at him as I passed, a little deeper than I would have in the States, and he did the same and I felt like we knew something that no one else here did.  I sprinted up the next hill I came to feeling momentarily invigorated.

Mostly though, It seems I am the only one.  Each time I try a new route I think it may be the first time anyone has ran past these mushrooming trees and hair salons with strange english names and farmers permanently hunched from years of tending crops and rose blossom-covered streams and miniature streets that lead nowhere and the smell of bamboo steaming in the heat as I finish a run.

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