Mikami is a modern day bard, singing
the epic tale of humanity, our sorrow, our hurt, our self doubt and
deprecation. Our mortality. Mikami unleashed the cries and the pain
of what we know but are too afraid to show. What I was hearing was
real, we have all heard it before, but now we were face to face with
it, bellowed from a giant.
Literally, I have no idea of what he
sang. The words were lost on me. But, that night I learned the secret
behind his music. Language is not what matters the most with Mikami's
music. Stories are important, poetry to paint beautiful pictures and
create and landscapes is important. However the lasting impression is
in the feeling itself. This is the nucleus of Mikami's music. Without
feeling the meaning would be lost. Mikami's emotion dripped from him
with the sweat from his forehead. For forty minutes he played with
force, unfaltering before us and when the end came I was still
processing what I had just seen.
Though Mikami came in with the storm,
the next day he was able to bring the sun to its feet. The typhoon
had moved quickly North, harassing Tokyo and forcing Mikami to stay
one last day in Miyazaki. My god, the day was beautiful! The air was
sweet and pure. The streets showed no signs of ever having been
assaulted the night before. The city was at rest and ours for the
taking. From the beginning Mikami's knowledge and eagerness could not
be contained. Every new sight, sound and encounter brought questions,
explanations and facts. His mind never rester and curiosity flowed
through him like blood. While he is wise and experienced, he
perceives and thinks about the world like a child, as though
everything is new to him.
Our first stop was Miyazaki Jingu. We
hadn't even passed through the Tori gate when Mikami's amazement shot
up. He bounded from the car, grasping everything around him. We came
to a bridge and stared down at ourselves. Fins carved through our
reflections and Mikami, acting as tour guide, began explaining the
history and mythology of the Japanese Koi. When we came to a rice
field cordoned off he snapped a few beads of rice off and gave us the
history of the Emperor and his rice fields. Soon we were wading
through a small pond in order to gaze at a pair of statues,
signifying human balance. Here we rested but he never stopped
teaching.
Out of the city and into the country
we traveled. Mikami is a man of nature. His sense of adventure
intensified and suddenly we were in the wild. Nature guide Mikami
plowed forward through bushes, trails, bounding over streams. The
mountain bear, the great survivor. “This is poisonous, do not
eat!... Crush this to make a natural oil....” his abilities know no
end. He lead us upward and the bushes began to thicken. Maybe it was
time to turn back. “What we're not even gonna finish?” I thought
my sarcasm was apparent but it was lost in translation and the great
bear moved forward. The brush grew thicker and thicker until our
sensei was forced to take up a stick and hack away at the bushes
before us. Soon we were out of the forest and into the Onsen
regaining our vitality.
The excursion continued with a drive
through Aya. Everyone was silent, concentrating on the serene view
around us. Pulling of the road, we sauntered down to the water's edge
and Mikami challenged us to a game of skipping stones, because in
real life he is a kid. Of course his rocks skipped farther and
smoother than any of ours. We loitered for a bit, he talked of Ray
Charles and Georgia and pine trees and the pineapples that grow on
the pine trees and “oh you mean pinecones, the tiny things...”
“oh! Pinecones, eh? Hah! Pineapples.. you know I like
mistranslations, shows you have imagination.” Yeah, I agreed,
everyday I'm living a mistranslation.
That night we feasted and played
beneath a bright moon, human and animal both. Mikami's stories never
rested and though I couldn't understand, I wallowed in the sound of
his words. At the end of the night he was dancing, guitar in hand,
bellowing the same sorrowful cries we had heard the night before, but
this time it was for the moon.
