Yoko and the Snow –Part Two

Japan, 2021. © Reiko S.

Before winter comes it is my custom to go to Zenko-ji temple, one hour by train from Shibu Onsen.

Yes, also to pray, to enjoy nature, the sinuous line of the Togakushi mountains, but above all to buy two new umbrellas for the snow that will come from Nishinomon Cho. His umbrellas are works of art: just weighing them and touching the surface of the colored fabric makes me foretaste the touch of the snow.

On the train, on the way back, I try to imagine the pilgrims who one thousand and three hundred years ago traveled this road that led from the small town of Shibu Onsen to the temple, resting their tired bodies in the hot waters of the baths.

Were it not for this train, for the cream-colored buses, for the parked cars, it would seem as if time hadn't moved much since then.

The perfect place to lose track.

I could have stayed in Tokyo without any anxiety.

Crossing the city far and wide in the subway cars without anyone noticing my face, all bent over their phones, lost in sleep standing or in luminous screens that are artificial bodies of water for Narcissus who have removed their loneliness, or they deceive her into virtual social relations.

Somewhere I read that “the feeling of loneliness poisoning society”.

Ironically, I feel less alone in the small streets of this thousand-year-old town than in Tokyo's fluorescent multitude.

Who knows if my husband sometimes wonders where I have ended up?

 

Nishinomon Cho. Source: Virtual Japan (YouTube)

My name is Yoko and I am 34 years old.

I rarely wear yukata, only when I still want to feel beautiful.

Beautiful for whom, then!

Men don't look at me.

I think I'm too common a woman, bordering on insignificant.

When I want to be watched, I cross the bridge with the red railings and stand in front of the large Samurai Monkey figure at the side of the road.

Waiting for a nod. As if he were to make a final judgment on me.

“Yoko, you are a coward! A traitor. An inept!

A sterile cherry tree that doesn't know how to blossom even in March!”

But maybe those are the words my husband would say if he one day found me in front of the door.

The Samurai Monkey, on the other hand, remains impassive, mute and immobile.

Then I bow to him and walk again.

 

Shibu Onsen. Source: Virtual Japan (YouTube)

I was talking about the snow.

I've always liked it, since I was a child.

Because it falls silently, it covers everything.

You can guess what is underneath from the shape or from memory. You know that under that little white mound is the red post box; the vase with the plant next to the entrance to the sotoyu with the blue sign and the white characters.

It's a bit like my existence.

As soon as I got married, I was happy. Everything was well defined.

Our work, dinners with friends, the trip to Mount Fuji, evenings at the theatre.

Then over the years it is as if the shapes began to lose definition.

That happiness was starting to be more of a work of memory rather than of the eye or the heart.

Without realizing it.

It's not like rain roaring like an upturned river on rooftops and umbrellas. You begin to think that your own happiness is in the aligned and symmetrical chopsticks on the table next to the bowl of rice, in the slippers at the foot of the bed, and no longer in the kiss of the man you loved.

Then the moment comes when the snow has covered that kiss also, that caress.

Everything becomes a white and cold, anaesthetics blanket.

To the point that even knowing about his betrayals doesn't hurt you anymore. Because if you put your hand in the snow after a few minutes you don't feel it anymore.

“Man sleeping on commuter line”. Tokyo, 1960. ©Shigeichi Nagano

When I was watching that show on TV, about the people who disappear, the yonige, it seemed crazy to me. Okay the debts, the mafia, the shame of a dismissal, of an exam not passed, but how can you leave everything in secret, from day to night!

Wait for the dark and load all your belongings on a truck and wake up in the morning in a distant city, without identity, without past or future.

What madness!

And here I am sipping Tamamura's best sake just like one of them.

How blurred is the boundary between apparent madness and the necessary desire to start living again.

A cycle of lives without the hassle of death.

But it's as if the whole of our society was slowly preparing to facilitate these disappearances.

We begin to disappear already when we are seated one in front of the other for dinner, in our apartments, in our silences.

Unspoken words between a dumpling and a noddle.

When we forget the dates of birthdays and anniversaries, not to say goodbye when we go out in the morning to go to work. When we no longer call each other by name.

My name is Yoko. YOKO.

Even the Samurai Monkey has learned my name by now.

 

Samurai Monkey. Source: Virtual Japan (YouTube)

Maybe one January evening, after a long bath in thermal water, I'll wear my white yukata with painted peach blossoms, grandma's geta and my ocher umbrella and cross these little streets illuminated by yellow lamps under the roof beams low of the houses, I will greet the imposing Kanaguya, yes, the bicentennial ryokan that hides its spirits, I will cross the bridge with the wooden planks covered by the snow on the Yokoyugawa River, humming the pop song of YOASOBI and I will find a bench on the side of the road.

Kanaguya. Shibu Onsen, 2022. ©Chihiro Matsumoto

I will sit and watch the snowflakes spinning under the light cone of the street lamps.

I will close the umbrella bought by Nishinomon Cho and wait for the snow to cover me, flake after flake.

Like a pilgrim tired of a thousand years of walking.

No one will ever come looking for me and the Samurai Monkey will know how to keep my secret.

Still, believe me: this is my happiness.

Because each of us has our own form of happiness.

It just needs to be looked for. Under the snow.

“Warui no wa dare da...”
“Dare no sei de mo nai...”
“...Sayonara to tomo ni owaru dake na n da...”

“Whose fault is it?”
“It's nobody's fault.”
“It's just that we will end, together with a goodbye…”

“The soul, you see, is a shy and retiring thing.

It lurks in dark places and dislikes sunlight. And so, if you do not keep the skylight open at all times, the soul will rot. It easily decays, like a fresh sea urchin.”

(Yukio Mishima)

Shibu Onsen, 2022. ©Chihiro Matsumoto

Of great inspiration was the book “The Vanished – The “evaporated people” of Japan in stories and photographs” by Léna Mauger and Stéphane Remael (Skyhorse Publishing, 2016)
Special thanks for this story goes to Chihiro Matsumoto who allowed me to use his photographs of Shibu Onsen which were an inspiration to me and helped me with some information about the city.
And also thanks to Reiko S. for using one of her photographs.
IG: Chihiro Matsumoto
IG: Reikos.vn
Virtual Japan videos on YouTube are also essential for getting into the “mood” of the city.   

Post Scriptum:

Yoko's name is a tribute to Yoko, Nobuyoshi Araki's beloved wife who died of cancer.

YOASOBI, “Ayase (Probably)”

Italian version