Probably a good description of Mutsu is from any typical visitor that comes here. It really has nothing going on at all from the outside. In fact, if people didn’t have GPS’s equipped they might not even know they’re in Mutsu. Ok perhaps that’s a bit harsh to say about this place. However, for that reason, being a resident of Mutsu means one must do what they can to find “the thing to do” here. Here the secret is to motivate yourself daily to get out of your apartment and find something to do. Believe it or not, with the right plan and motivation, you can make any cold brisk Saturday morning into a day of enjoyment.

Take my skiing weekend story:

A few weekends back I took out a pair of cross-country skis that were given to me by a friend. It had been awhile since I had skied and I was a bit anxious and nervous how I would do. I had decided for cross-country skiing I’d start off small and simple like Mutsu’s very own sport’s park. Here the facilities are often used all throughout the other three seasons, but in the winter it’s a quiet, silent, and peaceful place to ski around. Here in the winter, they never plow the snow in the park so it’s real thick powdery stuff.

Just strapping on and taking off from the baseball diamond was a beautiful wintery landscape. The track field was barely visible and nearly one and a half feet of snow sat perched upon the score board. Snow had piled so high that trees that towered around the park were reachable by hand as I slipped passed underneath them.

Faintly around the park seemed to be the sign of another pair of skiers that had gone earlier, but their tracks had been covered by a light dusting. If only I had gone later I wouldn’t have known if they were tracks or small dimples covering some mystery deep underneath them. This route I skied in took me all around the park. Tall slender trees stood silently in the distant as their branches deeply bowed as if burdened with old man winter’s heavy snow.

Deciduous trees, whose shade covers families and kids alike from summer’s harsh rays, stuck out of the white mass with their leafless branches reaching high into the air. Everything there looked quiet, still, and freshly chilled by winter’s cold breath. It was as if everything had been tucked into the vast blanket of snow and gone into a deep hibernation.  There was no cheering or roars from the stands, no cracking sounds of bats or starter guns, nothing  but the silence winter brings here to Shimokita Peninsula.

I had in fact gone out and discovered something indeed that day. I had discovered while skiing that every place does in fact have secret pockets of beauty in it. More over, because that beauty exists, it also makes living here in sub-freezing weather and bombarded with snow, all that more tolerable.

~J out

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