journal features

Fuji glimpses

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Kawasaki, 2020.04.14

Years ago when I lived in Sydney it was frequent that you'd see apartment listings featuring the term "harbor views". This meant you could supposedly see the Sydney harbor. This was occasionally derided as "harbor glimpses", meaning in the right conditions and looking in exactly the right direction (say, between two other apartment buildings and through the infrastructure of a bridge) you could see the water.

Well this morning, more than a month after moving in, I've discovered that my apartment (or rather, the out-door hallway outside my apartment) has "Mt Fuji glimpses". It rained hard for several hours yesterday, scrubbing the air. So it was only today that I saw the big mountain.

Can see you see that tuft of white on the horizon?

Fuji!

Upon reflection I find it curious that I've never spotted the mountain from the cemetery, which is in that line of trees across the hill-top that forms the horizon in these photos. I guess that's smog for you.

rand()m quote

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.