Jungle Season Spring finally came to this far in the mountain. Butterbur buds started to poke out of the ground everywhere. Did you know that butterbur buds and butterbur are connected each other underground? I didn’t. Why are they connected each other? What’s that about? Funny ha. When I was living in Tokyo, I had this strange sensation about the butterbur sold at the store. Since I love butterburs I always pick them up, but always I had to say, “What, is this butterbur?” Mura responds back to me that the size is quite right for butterbur. Was that a dream that I was eating huge ones when I was a kid? But it was proven at last that my memory was so-so this spring. By the way the problem about the Internet connection finally settled. I decided to work on my website and other things at the Ezo-ampurin (pudding) factory. It was my last resort to do this here, but I think it was a good decision since everybody can use internet now. After a while, I realized this big thing. In Tokyo I was working mostly at home. Simple works were done through fax and phone, finished data was transferred through the internet, so I can work anywhere. I have been dreaming, “Hey then I want to work in the log house on the hill where I can see nice view around”. I was imagining my self working in the log house on the hill that smoke goes up through the chimney. Wow! “Wait a minute! I am actually doing that already!!” Murphy’s Law is true. I do believe it. The trick is to imagine something you want to do with a foolish grinning face. If you wish too much, it doesn’t come true most of the time. I failed the university entrance exams many times. But then I managed to meet with Hiroko Yakushimaru (an actress), although I was dreaming to meet her very much when I was junior high school age. By the way it took me 18 years to complete this wish. Hey guys, don’t give up your dreams. To tell the truth, I spoke excitedly this “log house on the hill” story to Mura, Katokichi, and Bum-hei, but they did not react back to me at all. Jees. Well, it’s been a month since we got here. We haven’t finished fixing our house… all right, we haven’t even touched the entrance and bathroom which had to be done at the first place. Also we started to plant quite a lot of vegetables, far more than we planned… Pretty busy everyday. One day we stopped working at noon. If we don’t quit at certain time, work never ends. Gravel roads started to dry up, so I went biking on my mountain bike to the dirt road where I wanted to try. This was the road Katokichi took us last year. Katokichi shouted with smile, “Jungle cruise!” to me at that time. I thought at the time, “I would be in heaven if I could ride on the mountain bike here.” “I will come here first if I could relocate here.” I was dreaming about that in my head. I added a song “Long season” by Fishmans to my iPod this morning. I used to listen to this song a lot a quite a while ago. To tell the truth, I put Fishmans’ CD to the “don’t listen often” box since I didn’t think I would listen to this album in Hokkaido. I thought Fishmans’ songs were made for the good feeling of the city life. But Katokichi was listening to this song last night unexpectedly. This song sounds great even here in Hokkaido! 40 years old + mountain bike + iPod (Fishmans) + dirt road in the morning of a regular day = middle aged weirdo Middle aged weirdo x short pants / bear bell = middle aged weirdo who communicates with the deep sky “Nice to be alone once in a while hey, brother!” “Actually I love being by myself.” A middle aged weirdo who communicates with the deep sky went out to the dirt road. You gotta bike on the dirt road if you have a mountain bike. Yahoo, I was grinning. I could feel the movement of tires when I pedaled. When I put more power, tires changed their shapes. “Use that elasticity to go forward, just like kicking the road forward. Go! Go! Go even more!” I was pedaling my bike, repeated that phrase again and again to myself. Smiling at the same time. Ringing a bear bell. There were still a lot of snow left on the ground (photo was taken recently) but new buds on trees were everywhere. Buds had so much energy I thought they would attack me. I just about got scared at the entrance of the dirt road. By the way I heard that there are bears everywhere around here. I was enjoying the feel of the pedals, the smells, effect of the lights, sound of the streams, relatively fast speed, and a little bit of tension. 40 minutes passed so quickly and I was at the end of the dirt road. On the way back home, I had that “Long season” as background music very faintly. The song started to fuse into the sounds around me. I couldn’t tell the border of the “Long season” and natural sounds. Feel great! Wanna drink beer! There was no snow on the road but the wind was quite cold. “What the … sound? There’s sound attached to the wind!” When that cold wind passed thorough me, just that very moment, the perfect sound matched that wind. It actually was the sound from “Long season” … Theme song was created for this cold wind. More and more songs were created. The names of the created songs at that time are; “Black woodpecker”, “Butterbur”, “Wind”, “Gravel”, “Sun”, “Water paddle” … Writing up these events, I feel I’ve become such a simple 40 years old… Probably the sounds from the iPod and the natural sounds fused together, I felt that I started to become a part of the scenery. Really, believe me. By chance, the length of the song and the dirt road was the same. When the song was finishing off, I arrived back to my car. Wanna drink beer! I stood there mindlessly. When I got myself back, I turned back from a “middle aged weirdo who communicates with the deep sky” to a “middle aged weirdo”. Then by the time I got on the car, I was turning back slowly to just a “middle aged guy”. I was lucky to be back to normal actually. Gotta paint this afternoon. But before starting painting, let’s have some beer! Hey brother!! (Who?)