Ocean Views, Mountain Views | Naoyuki Agawa (Vice-President in charge of Shonan Fujisawa Campus)

2011.01.26

At the end of last year, I moved. Even though I just moved to a higher floor in the same apartment building, it was quite an ordeal. I was too busy to prepare in advance. I had the movers pack every last little thing into boxes and, one way or another, moved them up to the new apartment in the elevator. After that, I had no time to unpack. A month has passed, and I'm still living and sleeping surrounded by boxes. It's a strange thing, but you can get by just fine without unpacking all the boxes. Most of it is probably unnecessary. People accumulate a lot of unnecessary things, take on a lot of unnecessary work, and go through life complaining about how busy they are. Let's throw things away. Let's throw away more. In the end, let's throw ourselves away too. But it's not so easy to throw things away, is it?

My new home is higher than the surrounding buildings, so the view is great. The location is near the Port of Yokohama, but unfortunately, it's on the mountain side, so I can't see the passenger and cargo ships coming and going. Instead, I can see Mount Fuji. I can see it really well. A long time ago, from the window of an apartment I lived in in Tokyo, I could see a small glimpse of Mount Fuji far in the distance, beyond the hills across the Tama River, but it feels much larger than it did then. This is probably because, due to the direction, the Tanzawa Mountains don't block the foothills.

In this season, when the air is dry and clear, snow-capped Mount Fuji is exceptionally beautiful. Its ridgeline draws a gentle curve, stretching smoothly. With no tall mountains around it, it stands out clearly against the sky. And throughout the day, it often changes its appearance. The angle of the light, the weather, the shape of the clouds, and the amount of snow give various expressions and hues to the mountainside.

However, according to Osamu Dazai's work "Fugaku Hyakkei," while the summit angle of Fuji depicted by artists like Hiroshige and Bunchō is around 85 degrees, and as steep as 30 degrees in Hokusai's works, the actual surveyed value is only around 120 degrees. They say Mount Fuji is a sprawling, low mountain, squat for its wide base. Perhaps so. They say it's wonderful because it's a mountain of longing that evokes various emotions the moment you see it. That may be true as well. Even so, when I wake up in the morning, Mount Fuji is there outside my window. In the evening, as the sun sets and dusk settles, Mount Fuji is silhouetted in a pale black against the sky. It makes me happy.

From my new home, I can also see the sea. I knew I could see the mountains before I moved, but I hadn't expected the sea. Even Mr. S from the real estate agency didn't know. But when I went out onto the balcony and looked south, the surface of Tokyo Bay stretched out like a ribbon between the hills from Yamate to Negishi and the Bōsō Peninsula. The sea surface continues from the channel at Kannonzaki to off the coast of Yokosuka, disappears once behind the hills, and then reappears near Isogo. Taking out my opera glasses, I could make out large container ships sailing the Tokyo Bay shipping lane, the Kannonzaki Lighthouse, and the IHI Marine United shipyard. On sunny days, bathed in sunlight, the sea surface shines silver. It's delightful.

Of course, it's not as if I spend all day just gazing at the mountains and the sea. As soon as the move was over, it was right back to work. I leave home in the morning and come back at night, so I have no time to enjoy the scenery. Instead, I'm always looking at a computer screen. From the end of the year through the New Year's holiday, I was working at home the whole time. On New Year's Eve, I was writing a manuscript all day, and before I knew it, the *Kōhaku Uta Gassen* was about to end. I rushed to the TV and watched just about 10 minutes of *Yuku Toshi Kuru Toshi*. As midnight approached, the firecrackers in Chinatown started to go off. People were gathering in the schoolyard of the Yokohama Overseas Chinese School to celebrate the New Year. I didn't hear any ship horns from the port.

But why is New Year's so auspicious anyway? Because of time differences, the moment the new year begins varies depending on where you are in the world. When the countdown starts in Tokyo, it's not even 10:00 a.m. on New Year's Eve in New York. I could understand if it were the birthday of Christ, Buddha, the Emperor, or Yukichi Fukuzawa. But is it really something to make such a fuss about just because the Earth, which has been orbiting the sun for billions of years, has completed one more lap? Unlike when I was a child, there's no one to give me *otoshidama* anymore. On top of that, perhaps because I'm getting older, the year seems to fly by in an instant recently. I've been so busy these past few years I can't even write *nengajō*. Ah, soon I'll be another year older. The end draws nearer, step by step.

This New Year's, it suddenly occurred to me, "Ah, this is the end." I haven't become pessimistic. I even feel a certain sense of clarity. Of course, there is still a lot of work that must be done. Daily life is full of tedious matters. I can't escape from promises and deadlines. So it's not completely over yet. But when I think, "This is it, it's over," things don't seem so burdensome.

I have no intention of abandoning my current work midway. I fully intend to fulfill my various duties and obligations. But there's a limit to what I can do from now on. I don't imagine I'll meet a peerless beauty and fall in love (or more accurately, that a peerless beauty will fall in love with me), nor will I likely be recognized for my beautiful voice and become a late bloomer in the world of popular music. It's about time I got my affairs in order and did what I can do, what I want to do. I'll take a train and travel around Tōhoku and Kyūshū. I'll take a ship and go out to sea. I'll write and publish a modest book.

On a winter evening, the setting sun sinks in an instant. The clear sky is dyed red, and even after the sun has set, it remains bright for a while like a lingering trace, but a few minutes later, darkness envelops everything. Life is not unlike the time from sunrise to sunset. The period of bright shining is very brief, and the light soon fades. In my case, is it perhaps around 4:30 p.m.? No, maybe it's already past 5:00. I'd like to shine just a little, faintly, at the end, but it doesn't seem I'll become such a beautiful sunset.

But when morning comes, the sun will rise again. A new day begins. And there are the imposing, unmoving mountains and the shining sea. They will still be there, unchanged, long after I am gone. Of course, if you think in terms of tens of thousands or hundreds of millions of years, neither the mountains nor the sea are permanent. Mount Fuji might erupt again. Global warming might cause the sea to swallow the coastal cities along Tokyo Bay. The day will come when the sun exhausts its energy, and the Earth itself will vanish from this universe. Humanity will perish.

But my life is not long enough to worry about such a distant future. For a little while longer, I'll live happily while worrying about things like what Keio's international strategy should be, or whether the security policy of the Democratic Party of Japan administration is sound. And I'll hand over my current job to younger people as soon as possible. When my strength fails, my mind goes, and I can no longer move, I'll relax and gaze at the mountains and the sea from my apartment balcony.

The days are gradually getting longer, the tree buds are swelling, and spring will be here soon.

(Published: 2011/01/26)