Hokkaido Highway Blues

the story ends. Later versions, however, added a rather dubious postscript. Daishi said, “Congratulations! You found me. Anything I can do for you? Anything at all, you name it.” To which the dying Emon Saburō replied, “Yes, I would like to be reborn as an even richer man, a lord no less, so that I can better help the common folk.” (Sure, the ol’ “let-me-be-reborn-as-a-millionaire-and-I-promise-to-help-the-poor-this-time-honest-I-will-honest” routine.) Kōbō Daishi granted him his last wish and wrote a message on a small stone and pressed it into the palm of Emon Saburō’s hand just as Emon died. Emon was buried with it still in his palm. His pilgrim’s staff, planted as a headstone, came to life and grew into a great cedar. Nine months later, the wife of Lord Iyo gave birth to a baby who was born with his hand clenched into a fist. A priest was called in from a nearby temple, and as he chanted the sutras, the infant’s hand opened. Inside was a small stone. On it was inscribed: Emon Saburō, born again into this world.
    The stone—and the legend—are carefully preserved at Ishite-ji Temple in Matsuyama City, Temple Number Fifty-one on the circuit. In Japanese, the name Ishite-ji means “Stone-in-Hand Temple.”
    It reminds me of something I once read about the origins of the “thumbs up” gesture. When a child is born, its hands are curled into tiny fists. Slowly, one by one, the fingers relax, releasing the thumb. It is the first action of self-declaration, of saying, I am here. The extended thumb became a symbol of birth, of life, of freedom. It was this symbol that was used by Roman emperors to pass judgment. And it is this symbol that signifies the hitchhiker, the traveler. The first-person pronoun in motion.
     
    * * *
     
    American author Oliver Statler made the Eighty-eight Temple Pilgrimage several times, and in Japanese Pilgrimage , he writes:
     
There are pilgrimages all over the world. In most, one travels to a place or places hallowed by events that took place there. One goes; one reaches one’s goal; one returns.... But this Shikoku pilgrimage is the only pilgrimage I know of that is essentially a circle. It has no beginning and no end. Like the quest for enlightenment, it is unending.
What is important is not the destination but the act of getting there, not the goal but the going.
     
    When I read this I felt a rush of emotion: There it was, the Traveler’s Maxim, the Creed of the Hitchhiker. Then, in an equal rush of emotion I realized that far from being a circle, I was charting a linear, prosaic course. A razor-straight line. It dogged me the entire way, the sense that the path I was following was dishonest, or—at the very least—flawed. It wasn’t until much later, alone in a blizzard on an island at the end of Japan, that I realized what I had been missing. It is so simple it is almost banal: There are no straight journeys in life, because all journeys are essentially circles. You may set out to leave your Self behind, but in the end you always come back to it, like someone lost in a forest, like a dog tethered to a leash.
    When you are pinned to the center, every journey is a circle and all circles are self-referential, turning again and again, like Emon Saburō seeking an answer.
     

9
     
    MY SECOND RIDE of the day took me to Matsuyama City. The vehicle was the same type of boxed truck I had ridden in Kyushu, but instead of pachinko machines it contained the clippings and debris of flowers and an aroma so strong it gagged me. It was like being trapped in an elevator with Aunt Matilda of the excess perfume.
    The driver was a stocky man with flyaway silver hair, and, in one of life’s quirky little coincidences, his name was Saburō. “But my family name is Nakamura,” he said. “Nakamura Saburō. No relation to Emon.”
    He was on his way into Matsuyama City to meet his daughter Etsuko, who was flying in from Kobe. I was a big man he said, slapping me on the chest. Had I climbed Mount Fuji yet? Yes, I said, I had. And then, in my typical suave and bon mot way, I repeated the witticism about how it is a wise man who climbs Mount Fuji once, and a fool who climbs it twice.
    There was a long pause. And then slowly, deliberately, Saburō said, “I have climbed Mount Fuji three times.”
    Oh. “Well,” I said, “I guess that would make you a... a wise fool.”
    He roared with laughter. “Yes!” he said, not in agreement, but in a sort of Eureka! way, as