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I was riding my bike a few weeks ago looking for roads into the mountains and one of them led to this solitary tree on top of a knoll, the 傘松 (umbrella pine), which, according to the sign, is a sacred Shinto tree.

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I meant to have posted a story I've been working on this weekend, but I talked it over with my friend Dan this weekend and he convinced me to change the form of the thing, so it'll be a few more weeks before I can post it. In lieu of that, here's something that happened yesterday:

There's a little street in Matsumoto called Nawate-dori where you can find a lot of little specialty shops. And also frogs. Dan and I went into this boardgame shop that he likes and the owner was a nice, talkative old man named Saito. He and Dan were talking about boardgames and cardgames and suddenly Mr. Saito throws a question my way.

Now, in general, my listening is abysmal in Japanese. I like reading--books don't get embarrassed if I can't understand what they're telling me so I find them safe conversation partners. On top of that, I had poor or non-existant study habits for the first year and a half after I came to Japan, and by the time I started studying in earnest I'd already picked up the bad habit of nodding along at pauses in conversation, and over time I guess I got good enough at faking comprehension that most people assume I know what they're saying.

So I figured out pretty easily that Mr. Saito was asking me if I was interested in board games. I told him I played a lot of Axis & Allies in college, but nothing since then.

A few minutes later we were getting ready to leave, when Mr. Saito handed me and Dan his business card. Printed on the top left of the card was a copy of the large semi-abstract painting hanging in the shop. Now, being handed a business card in Japan is akin to being served tea in England: it's a gesture nearly ceremonial in nature and it's good form to make polite conversation in response.

I took the obvious route and asked Mr. Saito if he'd painted the picture. He had, and he asked what we thought it looked like. I thought it looked like a city, but apparently it was a tree something-something (again I couldn't really catch his explanation).

He went behind his desk and brought out a sheet of paper which was, he explained, a copy of a poem he'd written. It wasn't a haiku--he hated haiku. And I think he also said it wasn't tanka--he hated tanka too. It was either his own free form of poetry or a rare classic style that I wouldn't have caught the name if I'd heard it. It had on one side a picture of the print on which he'd written the poem, and on the other side an explanation of the poem. The explanation was necessary because the poem was, I guess, written in the old style of Japanese--all kanji, no hiragana.

Actually, the poems were really interesting as far as I could make out. The way he was writing allowed him to fit multiple meanings into each line. Very James Joyce. I haven't properly read the explanation he handed me yet, but if I can figure it out that would make an interesting next post.

After this paper, he pulled out a binder full of poems. I couldn't really follow what he was saying even from the beginning, but the longer he talked the less I was able to focus. After five or ten minutes I was sort of reduced giving numb responses when he asked me what I thought. "Very beautiful." "It's really interesting, I only wish I could understand it better."

This went on for some time. I was trying to pull myself away, and my answers were getting monotonous. I wanted to understand what he was saying, but it was impossible and I was getting tired.

He finished explaining another poem. "Very beautiful," I said.

「つらいよ,」 he said. 「癌。ステージ４。」("It's heart-rending. Cancer. Stage 4.")

He was showing me a poem he'd written about his wife's cancer, and I was spacing out.

"Ah. I mean the poetry. Of course the thing itself is terrible. I'm sorry."

Egads. Or, as Dan told me in so many words later, "How do you get yourself in situations like this all the time?"

Experiences like this are full of all the emotions: it's funny, it's awkward, it' touching, it's sad, and for me at least it's also inspiring me to hit the TV harder. I need to get my Japanese beyond bar-level conversations.

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Speaking of bars, Dan and I closed out the night at Beer Garage Ganesha, which has about a kerjillion imported beers and is Very Expensive Indeed, but provides each beer in its own-brand mug.