Uncut Ice

There was a new tone when the Australians got on the bus today.  How little we may know about a person or group of people in the first few moments that we meet them, and yet how much they tell us.  Something in the way that they fill the space around them, the tone of their voice, their awareness of those with whom they share their environment and the way that they express and tread upon that awareness.  After reestablishing my expectations to the Japanese tone of watching and listening, of gentle courtesy and observance of details and rules, of reservation for the sake of respect, I was strongly nudged by the strength of the Australian voices, the frequency with which they spoke, the jovial entitlement they exercised of the space around them.  Their faces were worn with wrinkles around the eyes and mouths, a group of seven in their late 40s and early 50s, familiar with sun and wine.  Knowing nothing about them, in the course of our two-hour journey to Sapporo I learned that they were dieticians or doctors, and that they read books and articles quickly in the midst of the constant distractions of the talkative among them.  Between exchanges of misunderstood Japanese words they had learned in the previous few days, they shared vague information about the thalamus and its function in diet regulation. 

And now I am in a place that I know from before, but which has taken on a new tone after time.  When I last saw the APA Hotel and the downtown streets of Sapporo, they were green and several feet larger than today.  The snow has filled their space and the cold air carries a new feeling.  I remember the wonderful friends from that summer, the quick bonds that we made in such a short and intimate time.  Perhaps it was their friendship that helped me fall in the love with Japan from the beginning.  And now to return to this place with new friends.  To walk with them in the cold, conversation and dancing used as a distraction from the lumps that used to be our feet and hands.  To see the beauty of the snow festival, the ice sculptures, to eat ramen in Ramen Alley, and amazing ice cream in the rotating restaurant above the city.  It is a new tone, full of so much from the beginning and yet still unformed.