Northern Japan: The Beginning

Late August 2009

Lifting my eyelids was like trying to pull water from a deep well. The alarm rang, and I hit the snooze. Then I hit it again. When my mind finally decided I had to get up, I moved slowly. There was an ominous pricking in my left ear. I had a headache and felt slightly flushed.

Stress sickness. I had felt it before.

“Stress sickness” is my own word. It’s that feeling of dancing dangerously on the edge of a cold. Technically, you’re not sick, you know you’re not sick, but if you push yourself too hard, you might well become so. It usually follows some period of intense work or stress. Hence the name.

When I was in Yamaguchi Prefecture last spring, I had felt these same symptoms, but the difference was they came in the middle of the trip—after I worn myself out trying to look at every single place of historical significance that I could find. This time all I’d done was wake up and I was already exhausted.

It was not an auspicious sign.

I got on my plane, read a book, and arrived at Hokkaido, and still my spell of exhaustion had not passed. So, then and there, I made a decision. This vacation I was not going to focus on seeing and doing as much as I could. This vacation I would have a new priority: relax.

It became a theme that wove through my vacation. It was my command, my order to myself. At the crossroads of a decision, I would ask myself: will this lead me to health and peace of mind? Or will it make me more stressed? It was my mantra that I chanted over and over again in my mind.

Relax. Relax. Relax.