ABSTRACT
The road down is slippery. The woman, who organized our stay in the Japan Alps, points down to the ¯oor of the small canyon. We hear the rushing water below. All I can think of is how much effort it will be to climb back up. I've just ¯own in from Australia and compare the lush vegetation here in Japanese summer to the sparse craggy bush with squiggly trees and red rocks of winter, some hours ago, in the pale haze of the Blue Mountains near Sydney. It is as though my soul refuses to arrive here, and is still languishing among the eucalypts. I can almost smell them. I violently shake my head in an attempt to arrive where I am now. My Japanese colleague looks askance. I act as though an insect is bothering me.
