(With apologies to Tim O’Brien for borrowing his great title).

Our friend Jody, trekker of Ladakh and Shikoku alike, gave us a very specific packing list for what to carry on this trip. This is a good thing, in part because I am not an experienced backpacker.

36-8 L backpack
small stuffable backpack
small stuff sacks

1 pair hiking pants
1 pair hiking capris or 2nd pair light hiking pants
1 pair long johns

2 short sleeved technical fabric shirts
1 long sleeved technical fabric hiking shirt
1 light down parka
1 layer of choice (such as a light wool hoodie)

2-3 pairs of hiking socks (Injinji)
3 pairs underwear
Something light to sleep in

baseball cap
light beanie
light gloves

rain gear
optional small umbrella

basic toiletries (many hotels and inns have razors)
basic first aid supplies, including Advil
nail clippers
reading glasses
phone
charger

coin purse
passport
stamp book (what they call a “nôkyôchô)
guide book by Matsushita Naoyuki

On top of Mt. Koya, when we arrive on Wednesday, we will purchase our pilgrim’s gear: a white cotton jacket (hakui), a priest’s stole (wagesa), a walking staff (kongozue), juzu (prayer beads), name slips (to leave at each temple we visit), a bag (zudabukuro) to carry the name slips, the stamp book, incense sticks and candles, a bell (for bears and wild boars?) and a sedge hat. We’ll look like this:

The only parts of this I really knew are the pilgrim’s outfit, having worn one many years before (and that, at least, appears to not have changed at all). For nearly everything else, I was “today years old” (as the kids say) when I learned about them.

Without guidance, I’d have gone into this thinking: cotton clothing; it breathes and it is light. Until 2022, I’d never heard of “merino wool.” I’d never heard the phrase, “cotton is what you die in” (or some such), referring to the fact that wet cotton doesn’t dry very quickly and bodies clothed in wet cotton just get colder and colder. The same goes with “technical fabric” for the pants and shirts. Thanks for the heads-up, Jody!

The last backpack I’d purchased was in 1983, for that first pilgrimage walk. Undoubtedly, backpack design has improved since then. My friend, Conner, convinced me to shift from hiking boots to light trail shoes, particularly for their ability to dry out faster (makes sense). Thanks Conner! Feet and torso…the most important parts of the body to take care of on the trip, right? (Don’t say brain, please.)

In short, I needed to get nearly everything new. So did Sam. And here’s where anxiety kicked in. I hate shopping for this kind of thing. How should I get all this stuff? How do I know if what I’m getting is any good?

Fortunately, we have a great store for all of this in Santa Cruz: Down Works, on River Street, run by a really nice and helpful couple, Nick and Shelly, who tended carefully to Sam and me for about two hours. I embraced my inexperience and risked exposing myself as a contemptible amateur. Nick and Shelly, with all of their years of experience, never took the bait. Instead, they talked us through all parts of Jody’s list, walked us through the options and helped us get properly provisioned: packs, clothing, other essentials. I walked out of their store overwhelmed with gratitude for their guidance and silently repeating an important lesson to myself (“it is a good thing to ask for help”). Thanks for the suggestion, Matt! And thanks, Nick and Shelly, for being so patient and encouraging!

My friend Alice took the lead on assembling a first aid kit to carry. She had thoughts and I…didn’t. First aid was not something I enjoyed learning, nor even had much opportunity to learn, as a kid. I joined the Boy Scouts for a short time as a kid (13 years old, maybe?). But I was alarmed by the fact that at each of those first weekly meetings, we spent virtually all of our time learning how to tie tourniquets. Did I really want to be a member of an organization that saw the ability to tie a tourniquet as an essential skill? Nope. I quit. So as Alice grilled me about how to tend to a variety of injuries and wounds, I couldn’t resist making fun of my only systematic introduction to first aid.

”Sam has a cut on his finger. What do you do?” she asks.

”Tie a tourniquet above his elbow, pull out the KA-BAR and remove the injured finger!” I snap in reply, as Alice rolls her eyes.

Yeah. We’ll be safe. Thanks, Alice, for trying to help me learn the healing arts!

This is a good place to bring up something I should have mentioned in the first blog post: in addition to walking, I have been working with a trainer, Zach, through the Future app, doing strength, mobility and flexibility training. Working with an online trainer worked well for me because while I started in the early summer of 2022 in Santa Cruz, I knew I’d be spending the fall in Kyoto and I wanted someone who could work with me wherever I was. Zach and I communicate after each workout, giving each other feedback, Zach answering my beginner’s questions at length (which is what I want). We’ve been making adjustments along the way. In late December we backed off the weights training and moved into body weight strength and flexibility training. As Sam and I are about to hit the road, I feel stronger, more flexible and mobile than I have in years. The osteoarthritis in my left knee is  far more manageable, I feel a bounce when I have to run that isn’t belly fat jostling about, and I can get up out of chairs and off the floor without making (too many) old man noises. Thanks, Zach!

At the recommendation of my old friend, Jon, a physician and high school athlete trainer, I have been doing a nutrition training program for the past 6 months with a program called Precision Nutrition. The Type II Diabetes diagnosis really worried me (my blood sugar levels, I’m happy to report, are back in the “pre-diabetic” range) and I wanted to work with someone on re-inventing my relationship with food, rather than read endless articles and try, without any real accountability, to make adjustments. I really like their approach, which emphasizes slow-but-steady habit-building, learning to read the signals from my body about how food and exercise impact my physical and mental well-being, and a strong commitment to pleasure and kindness to oneself. I am not nearly their best student, and I can confirm that I was good at none of those emphases. But the program and my coach, Scott, have given me ways to learn things about myself and eating at my somewhat advanced age. Thanks Jon and Scott!

While Jody stressed that her packing list was minimalist because carrying weight over 800 miles on mostly asphalt was more trying than I might imagine and that I might be looking to jettison things as we walk along, I am, unfortunately, carrying a few more things than her ideal.

Thanks to genetics and weight-gain (an anti-gratitude thanks), I have pretty bad sleep apnea. I can’t imagine going for two months without my CPAP machine. But my normal machine is a moose. So I got a travel CPAP that is light, small enough to fit into a ziploc bag, and remarkably effective. I’m grateful to my sleep doctor for helping me get that set up at the right gale force wind pressure to keep me breathing all night.

I’ve also got some extras.

A pocket-sized history reference book (lower right),
a portable hard drive (middle bottom),
a DJI Osmo Pocket gimbal video camera,
a magnifying glass,
a soft pen case,
an adapter to attach the hard drive to the
iPad Air
1 bamboo chopsticks holder

This latter set of items is in support of curiosity, reflection and, in the case of the chopsticks, beauty wedded to utility. With all respect to Jody who blogged her treks on her phone, I don’t think I can do that. I already have enough emotional blocks to writing so that a physical challenge would kill me. But I also am not pulling myself utterly away from my work, to be honest. I need to stay in touch with my team on the Okinawa Memories Initiative. They know what I am undertaking and we have an understanding about how and when I will be in regular touch with them. My students, grad and undergrad, will need letters of recommendation, we’ve got reports to write, and so on. So I’m not fully escaping work, just practicing how to put it in balance with self-care. I also want to share this trip with friends and family, so the camera and iPad will make that possible. These means of sharing what Sam and I are experiencing are my way of saying thanks.

Finally, besides taking care of myself, this trip is also about reconnecting to my curiosity. Years of administrative work have degraded my connection to curiosity. I have found that teaching Japanese history in the US also tends to put me at bird’s eye view of things, always taking stories and facts and putting them to a level of generalization that will make it meaningful to non-specialists. For these next two months, the magnifying glass and the historical reference book are my permission slips to indulge in the pleasures of the smallest details of history, legend and so forth.

With a nod, again, to Tim O’Brien’s powerful book, The Things They Carried, the objects with me are also manifestations of emotional baggage. I will write about other emotions at another time (especially my close companion, anxiety). But for today, recounting what is going into my bag and onto my back, supported by my legs, has me in a state of gratitude to all of those who have embraced this goal of mine and helped me get to here by offering advice, taking up slack or offering encouragement (which was way more necessary than most might have imagined). Thanks, especially, to Noriko and Peter, for sending Sam and me off with your blessings and for taking on our troubled cats by yourselves (and everything else).

Gratitude is the lightest baggage to carry. It is the bag that always has room for more and only makes you stronger.