初恋は登別温泉 2-2
Love at first sight –
Noboribetsu Onsen in Hokkaido
I gazed in fascination at the scene around me. The room was filled with tubs of different sizes. Ranging in size to accommodate from five to ten people, all were filled with ladies, enjoying a moment’s reflection alone or laughing and chatting with groups of friends. For the first time since my plane had landed in Japan, I felt no bind from my lack of language capability. I could not understand a word spoken but every voice in the room was pitched high with an expression of happiness and delight. My limited experience in the country had suggested that often ladies in Japanese society are bound by informal social codes to play a quieter role in social gatherings. I later learned that in moments of particular joy, Japanese women break these informal codes and become as publicly expressive of their feelings as anyone.
I studied the interior of the indoor onsen that was protecting me from the cold outside. The smooth teak walls were broken with waterfalls tumbling down the brown from the roof above and I felt that while my body and mind enjoyed relaxation, peace and tranquility, my eyes were feasting on my surroundings. Inside the bath, the water lapped around my body, swinging me gently from side to side as small waves do in the sea. I was in a gentle current that didn’t put me under pressure to move but seemed to be whispering to me that it could wash my troubles away. My body was suspended in water, moving as one with it, my mind having no control over the gentle swaying. Yet for the first time in months, I felt in harmony with the world, both this new world and the one I had left outside.
I was disturbed from my reverie by the opening of the outside door that allowed a puff of the frozen breath of winter into our warm haven. Someone was coming in out of the cold and it reminded me of the other world outside. I reluctantly left the warmth and opened the door. The forces of the cold frost and the biting wind for a moment halted me in my tracks. I struggled to get my breath as the winter chill tried to snatch it away. A moment passed and my inner warmth, that I had drawn from the warm water inside, conquered and I moved forward as warm as if I was sitting by the fire inside with my colleagues.
The sight before me seemed like a child’s dream. I stood by the misty open-air onsen and gazed in rapture at the snow that covered everything from the tall trees that stood guard over the onsen to the delicate flowers that seemed to gain strength from the warmth of the water. The full moon, high in the sky, threw shadows over the white ground, that almost seemed to lose themselves in the mist that hung over the pool. It was mysterious and beautiful and for the first time that evening, the journalist in me wanted to pick up a pen and try to capture this beautiful sight with words lest it try to escape from me.
The snow was still falling softly as I greedily drank in the sight of the marvel before me. The small snowflakes fell from above like small kisses of ice caressing my face. A cool touch replacing warm breath yet every bit as romantic. The white flakes fluttered to the ground, as though rushing to land, to touch something with their icy embrace. I looked in fascination at the onsen that seemed to quarrel with the snow as it tried in vain to land on the steaming water. As they ventured closer, the onsen would blow gently upwards and stop them before they could touch it with their icy fingers.
I turned away to return to the party, my colleagues not knowing how profound my experience had been while they had been laughing and sipping sake inside. I glanced back at the wide open space that seemed to extend too far, demanding too much but now I had the protecting embrace of a warm, watery arm that seemed to have found me as I had found it. I stood where I had been not long before reflecting on my lost love. I felt warmth and joy in my heart which that morning had been dead and cold. All my sorrow had disappeared. Under the shine of the moonlight in that snowy onsen garden in Noboribetsu, I had embarked on a warm love affair that would endure all hardships, would be with me until the end.
I had found a new lover and I had found myself.
