Searching for mt. fuji

Nancy McCabe

At Nihonji, we climb toward a skyful of clouds scanning the horizon for the tip of Mt. Fuji which proves as elusive as the face of my baby playing a perennial game of peek-a-boo in the face of my daughter, who cracks jokes, striding ahead, bearing all my good fortune.

At Sensoji Temple, vendors sell charms and fortunes. I follow my daughter through clouds of steam that ward off evil. She doesn’t crack a smile as I point out, past souvenirs and Fujifilm, charms for wealth, romance, traffic safety. The peak of her brow rises. She’s a stranger, not the baby

I pushed in a stroller like these women with their babies through music that plays in every corner, at least four tunes. A monsoon is expected, we may never catch a peek of that mythical mountain, a rumor behind clouds. On a clear day, says our guide, you can see Mt. Fuji doubled in a pond like the one at my feet, surface cracked by rain and wind, smothered by lotus, turtles in cracks of rocks, carp with bloated lips, rising like babies demanding to be fed, and my daughter fidgets, and this trip feels like a cookie without its fortune unlike that long ago China visit, when the clouds parted, someone handed me a baby, my life peaked.

Today the crowds are thick, hydrangeas at their peak and all my jokes belly-flop in the cracks between generations, her face a dark cloud. In a museum diorama, a mother births a baby surrounded by a family reveling in their fortune. They take this for granted, like the view of Mt. Fuji.

I may only ever see on the 1000 yen bill how Fuji towers at the sky’s tip, snow-covered peak ethereal, as if lighter than the four tons that weigh on my heart, wishing for a crack in her armor, remembering the soft skin of my baby, her hair a wild fluffy cloud.

But in a flash of fortune as elusive as Fuji majesty peeks through clouds. No baby but a woman appearing through the cracks.

Windows rattle against the sills of the old rented house in Provincetown— scrubby beach to the flat gray bay.

Frothy mind blows, every part of me aching.

I stumble to the bathroom, breakneck shallow stairs with a sharp turn half way down.

My heart tumbles over with effort as I climb back up to the lumpy bed and turn my back to the door.

Icy spine, fingers curled, something behind me buzzing.

Against the dim nightlight a raggy white creature strikes and strikes.