Origami House

Living in an origami house--translucent paper-and-glass walls, hidden folds of space more for storage than for habitation--it is difficult to keep warm. We take turns curling up in front of the kerosene heater and, as needed, mad dashes to the frigid bathroom. Though the afternoon has warmed up a little, the sink and toilet were frozen again this morning. Someone mentioned to us that the Japanese don't insulate their houses because they assume the insulation will keep them too warm in the summer. My hunch is that the exposure to the cold is an ascetic, Zen discipline.

At least today, the snow-bearing clouds have parted and the half-famous Japanese Alps are visible around us: white, smooth, perfectly unlike the bramble of the foothills below. These are what the surface of the moon must have 'looked like' to the Ptolemaic eye. Yet, they are familiar by being aloof, sublime. Natasha observes how unwelcoming and impassable the steep and bristly foothills of the area "feel". How they do not feel "home". Certainly, it is comforting, now, to have something so otherworldly brooding at the edges of the day.


But we have a home, a place, cold as it is. We have scrubbed the floors and walls, aired out the linen, hung whatever prints we could find on the walls, and have purchased little wooden placemats. We have been to local hot springs, on a Japanese tour bus full of little old ladies, and have been doing our best to find a taste for sake. We have been to one festival in which demons are warded off with thrown beans. We eat rice or noodles everyday, the former being organic and grown in a tiny field across from our house. The landowner, also our landlord, is one of my students. The rest of our groceries we buy at a grocery store five minutes walk away. Our school is above the store. The owner of our school, our boss, is the gauruntor of our housing lease and is in one of Natasha's English classes and in my French class. Today, she gave us hanging room divider as a housewarming present. The lines of hierarchy and community seem to run in many directions at once.