4 Min read

Mount Fuji

Japan

Hokusai on art

1 Book rec

Upcoming Events

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Nothing I produced before the age of seventy is worthy of note.

Hokusai

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Sunrise at station seven on Mount Fuji more than anything else helped me understand Japan’s namesake.

The land of the rising sun.

I hiked Fuji-san, the Japanese name for the nation’s highest mountain, in early September. It was a two-day hike, and it took stamina to ascend and brave the cold and winds at the summit (12,389 ft). The climbing season ended September 10.

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Two weeks in Japan was enough time to excite the senses: sights, smells, sounds.

There is something for everyone and the dollar is strong at 160 Yen. Foodies will enjoy omakase (chef’s choice) from sushi to wagyu. Ramen stalls, sumo wrestling, Tokyo Giants baseball, gardens, cafes, shrines and temples, shopping and the Onitsuka Tiger craze with shoes made famous by Bruce Lee, the olympics in Mexico (1968), and Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Yes, I got a pair at the Red Concept store.

Fastidious, clean, kind to a fault, over the top in details and courtesy. I can still see Mitsui waving and watching from outside the train window, after hauling my bags and making sure we made it on time. He was worried about the weather at Fuji and encouraged us to visit Kyoto instead.

I visited Jimbocho Book Town with its 176 bookstores.

At Isseido with its second floor foreign language collection, I picked up Hokusai’s Fuji in English, a compendium of his over 148 renderings of the mountain. The artist has work on the Yen, stamps, and is known worldwide for The Great Wave, with its hand and fingerlike tips and Mount Fuji in the center.

As a writer and reader, I found deep meaning and inspiration from the afterward Hokusai wrote to One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji.

‘Ever since I was six, I have been obsessed with drawing the shapes of things. By the time I was fifty, I had published countless drawings, but nothing I produced before the age of seventy is worthy of note. As I turned seventy three, I partially succeeded in capturing the physique of all living things and the vitality of plants. For that reason, from the age of eighty-six, I shall make great progress while at the age of ninety I will do so even more. It is my greatest wish to reach one hundred, when my work would become truly marvelous. If I live to be one hundred and ten, every dot and every line would be as if coming to life. I would ask any wise person who lives as long as I do to see if I am true to my word.’

Hokusai’s Fuji, Thames & Hudson Edition, 2023

As an author with my first book at fifty-seven, I am encouraged by Hokusai’s words.

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Upcoming Events

Please register at the links. I would love to see you there!

• Sat, Sept 19, 530 pm— Featured speaker, POW/MIA Annual Event, Palm Springs Air Museum — register here
• Thu, Sept 24, 2 PM — Author talk & book signing, WP Parents Club of Orange County & Foundation for Women Warriors — register here
• Tue, Sept 29, 7 PM — Author conversation, New Canaan Library — register here

*Huge shout-out to my cousins Priscilla the planner extrarordinaire and Dave the mountain man, for reserving the hut and permits to make this hike possible. And for everything else. Arigatou gozaimasu.