October 21

October 21...getting close to the end

It's so hard to even remember what we did just for the present day, but I'll force my brain to work like I do to the rest of my body. We stayed at a business hotel last night where they have beds not futons on the floor. It was so nice. It is getting so hard to get up from off the floor. Sounds dumb ehh, but so true. Try it when you're our age.

Walked along the river to Motoyamaji where they had a national treasure temple, 800 years old. It looked just like another temple to me. Then it was 11 miles to Iyadaniji but before we got there we stopped for in shop made udon, very tasty. It was getting warm by then, and this temple had stairs like it was on sale and they had to buy a truckload or none at all. It was up and up, Stairway to Heaven eh Mel. Then it was two small temples up the side of the hill, and one more on the flats, Koyamaji. That one had a lot of new construction which made it hard to recognize...as if I recognize any of them in the first place. We met a man there who wanted to tag along with us. I was in no mood for tagalongs. I was staring to lose it, fatigue and lack of food does that to the human body. We lost him like we did the stray dog. Fortunately it wasn't too long before we reached our last temple, Zentsuji, which made it a total of 19.2 miles and 8 hours of walking. It is the biggest but not necessarily the warmest, too many people, too commercial for both of us. It is the birthplace of Kobodaishi and has a lot of frills; pagodas, monuments, etc temples, etc. We are spending the night here. The temple runs the inn and it is like a new hotel. You do have the common furo and toilets, but otherwise it's pretty comfortable, clean, and modern. Dinner was very nice, tasty but there just wasn't very much of it. There were a lot of other people there but they weren't walking henros, aruki henros, so they didn't need the calories like Emi and I. Tomorrow we're going to have to look for more food.

When Emi was talking to the check in guy, I could actually understand most of it. Scary. It's time to leave. I have seen the season go from late summer into fall. I have seen the persimmons, kaki, go from green to orange. I have seen the typical Japanese autumn flower, the red spider lilies,
come and go. The temperature has dropped permanently from 30 to 24. The akimatsuri have come and gone. Yet I'm still here. When will this ever stop? When will my suffering end? Do I have that much bad karma to walk off? Do I need to suffer more? Yes, yes, and Yes again. We all must walk our paths until we realize our sins, faults, and then find the truth. And what is the truth? Beer, beer, and another beer. No, no, no I kid. Seriously, the truth for me is just to say thank you for this life. To appreciate it. That's it. Life for the day. It's the hedonist way...I kid again. But life each day; live in the moment. To worry about the future is pointless. What will be, will be. My words are, “live life with open arms.” Which means accepting whatever that comes your way or as a henro would say just put one foot in front of the other no matter what and do it as a manner of fact not something you have to endure or tolerate. Simple philosophy for a simple guy. Anything else, I don't know. Leave it to the philosophers and sages. I will never know, arms.” r do I care to find the ultimate truth, I with little faith. What can I say?