2001-08-02 - 10:45 a.m.
all that you can't leave behind (i)

go down to the water, deep down under water, walk up off the water you and me

Tuesday. Our last day in Kyoto. I was packed and ready to go with an hour to spare. I had finished reading The Man Born To Be King the day before. I took a walk while my brother finished packing.

I went down to the Kamo River, which runs right under our window. There are several paved bridges over the Kamo, but the bridge that caught my eye was the footbridge a little to our north. A dozen, maybe fifteen very large rocks were laid out across the river with spaces of a foot or so between them. There were also four small stone boats situated on the south side of the bridge. I often saw children playing on the bridge from my window. Sometimes it was the spot they picked for setting off fireworks.

I made my way to one of the boats. I was in a sundress whose cut made it hard to sit modestly. I finally situated myself, took off my sandals and put my bare feet in the water. I had seen plenty of people doing this, so I figured the water could be trusted. It was cool, clear, and clean. It was a hot day, but with my feet in the water I was all right.

Eventually, it was time to get back to the hotel room. Even though I didn:t feel like I was in any danger from the water, I left time to wash off my feet again in the bathtub back in the hotel room. On the way back, I passed an older British-looking man who looked a lot like Anthony Hopkins. I watched him cross the bridge carefully to wherever he was going, then I went inside.

distance is my tendency

We checked out of the hotel without incident and headed to the train station to catch the terribly fast train that would take us most of the way to our destination. We had a lot of baggage, of course--enough for four people on a three-week trip, including special items like my brother:s guitar--and we knew wrangling it around the station would be a pain in the ass, but oh well. We got out of the cab at the train station and hauled our stuff to the curb. My dad went to the information booth to find out where we went to check our baggage, and whether there were carts for lugging it around until then.

He came back a few minutes later. There were no carts--and there was no baggage check.

So we all hauled ass to the information booth with all our shit, and presented our shit to them with the indication that perhaps they could help us out and find some room at the inn. No dice. They did help us get through the gates and up to the right place to wait for our train, though.

At this point, we were all starting to get a little cranky.

Our train came, and it was okay. I got in first and asked my dad which way I should go to get out of everyone's way, and he told me the opposite direction, so I went that way and everyone went past me with just minimal yelling. My suitcase is a very large and heavy wheeled thing, so going the wrong way in a small space is a non-trivial concern. We were on the upper floor of the train, and I banged my suitcase up the stairs with maximum difficulty, frustration, and swearing, presumably because I was tired of being the serene, quiet one in the face of this. A smartly dressed young gentleman was waiting to get down the stairs, and I tried to wave him past after my family had gone up and before I:d gotten past the point of no return, but he insisted I come up first. As I thumped up the stairs, the train pulled away from the station. "I hope we didn:t make that guy miss his stop," my brother said with sweet concern. There were many things I could have said which I did not.

We argued over whether my suitcase would be safe on a shelf in the compartment which seemed to have almost no provision for keeping things from falling off it. I asked the conductor, when he came around, if it would be okay, and it was, and my brothre gloried over being right, and I congratulated him effusively for the fact that he was always right, which must be just the best feeling in the world, at least as long as it involved someone else being wrong, and then I stormed off to a window seat that was not mine and put on my headphones and listened to R.E.M.'s "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" until I could calm the fuck down and take a breath.

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