(9) A Cold Swim

    The ocean was cold and its winds blustery, blowing in from the west, between the harbor on one side, and the cliffs on the other. A soft, frigid wave splashed against my chest as I took a breath and dove into the chilly sea.

    As for why I was swimming in the Pacific in sixty-degree weather, I really had no idea. There was just something about the ocean, something about a large body of water, something about seeing a beach, that just made me want to take my clothes off and sprint toward the breakers; as if not doing so would be to forsake some irreplaceable opportunity, to renounce some beautiful gift.

    After all, how often did I get to go swimming in Japan? How often did I get to experience the eastern side of earth’s largest ocean? How could I say that I went to Japan if I never submerged myself in its waters?

    With a gasp, I surfaced, water trickling from my hair, over my eyes and lips. I waded back toward the beach, trudging to my pile of clothes where I plopped down on the sand. The beach was deserted, void of locals and tourists alike. Even the parking lots of the beachfront hotels were empty. It wasn’t high season for that sort of thing.

    It was nice to be alone. I’d spent the earlier part of the day in Kamakura, checking out the giant Buddha statue from the 14th century. That was my first experience seeing groups of tourists, four or five Americans among them.

    Something about seeing my fellow countrymen made me recognize the era in which I was traveling. It was an era in which America’s world dominance was waning. Baring some unforeseen event (an event on the scale of WWII), it would be a while before any one nation would exhibit such economic, military, and political power over the rest of the world.

    Mark Twain, one of my storytelling heroes, had also traveled abroad at a hinge-point in US history. Twain had traveled during the late 1800’s, back when America was little more than a hundred-year-old upstart nation fresh off its own civil war and mute on most issues of world politics. Like Twain, I would be doing a good share of foreign travel, and also like Twain, I would be returning to the US with my own oral storytelling tour. Twain had gotten himself into a good bit of trouble abroad. He’d been cited several times for public drunkenness and had gained a reputation for hanging with some lowly characters.

    The only lowly characters I’d seen so far in Japan were the faces on the wanted posters at the train station. The Japanese fugitives looked tame compared to the criminals I was used to seeing on the walls of American post offices. There was barely any crime in Japan, barely any homelessness too; both of which I was still trying to understand. Currently I had my mind wrapped around theories of societal ideologies. Why were the Japanese so well organized, so willing to follow seemingly useless laws of foot traffic and etiquette? By comparison, people in the US seemed cavalier.

    There was no shortage of mysteries to explore, more than I knew I’d be able to solve. Mine was an endless, hopeless endeavor, like trying to read all the books in the library.

    All I could do was look at what was in front of me, try not to delude myself, try to see life from as many angles as possible.

  I had three more days in Japan. I would do what I could.