If you were here I'd want to talk about two of my siblings, one of whom says I'm one of the best men she knows and one who said it would be better if we didn't have a relationship. I just erased five or six paragraphs, though, because I guess I've found something too private or possibly just painful for me to put on the internet.

So that's off the table.

Today and yesterday I climbed Mt. Fuji. Mm, it was pretty? The entire hike down was miserable? I don't really know what to say other than that, but I have a strong urge to write something here tonight.

How about David. David was sitting on the ground, bandanna tied around his head, looking out over the view from no-longer-the-summit of Fuji when I met him. He looked over at me and watched me for a few seconds as I experimented with a sidestepping gate that kind of kept me from slipping with every step. (Three-fourths of the path we took down Fuji was covered in half a foot of loose gravel and dust. And it's really steep.) He looked away when I reached his corner of the switchback, and my friend sat down to dust her backpack, and I thought, aw, what the hell.

I sat down next to him. He's about to start medical school in Washington. This is a last hurrah trip, up from Kyoto to Fuji, from there up to Tokyo and back to the states. He taught English in Ecuador for six months.

That moment was right. We shook hands and said goodbye ("And try going down the path in zig zags, you'll keep your forward momentum," he said) and I don't imagine I'll ever see him again or that I'd recognize him if I did, but the view was right. Forever and the tops of clouds. The ease of the conversation felt right. He picked it up as soon as I started, as if we were at a high school reunion instead of meeting for the first time purely because we'd climbed the same mountain and he looked at me and I thought he was cute. Speaking English felt right.

I saw him two or three hours further down as well, but he was talking to someone in his group and I had nothing else to say except "Please come home with me now," which I thought might come off wrong.

***

I fell asleep while trying to think of a good way to end this post. It was fantastic, exhausted sleep.