My late, maternal grandmother, known to everyone as “Kitty,” kept a journal on the cross-country trip she made with my grandfather from Western Pennsylvania to Southern California in the Spring of 1968. It was the first and only vacation she and my grandfather, who worked nights in the steel mill, would take without their five children, and the farthest she would travel in her lifetime. The journal is a meticulous record in ballpoint that details their daily mileage, what they ate, where they stayed, and who they visited, information occasionally interspersed with more emotional responses about her travels through unknown states, to see friends and family (including her oldest son at his naval post in CA). My grandmother filled every line of a baby-blue, drugstore notebook called “The Spiral,” (15¢), until the very last page, where she recorded the odometer’s final read, “42004.” This page also features a coffee stain, and pen scribbles (red and green) where she must have tried to get the ink flowing again; the scribbles and stain collapse time for a moment. What spilled from Kitty’s diner mug or Styrofoam cup as she huddled over the page in 1968, trying to remember everything, is touchable, here.
By coincidence, I was recently reading Kitty’s notebook alongside Matsuo Bashō’s travel journals, published in his Backroads to Far Towns (translated by Cid Corman and Kamaike Susumu). I began noticing similarities between the writings of the 17th Century haiku master and my grandmother, in style and subject both: from the dropped articles, delight in new foods, or anxiety about approaching storms as they each followed foreign roads, Kitty and Bashō share similar methods of accounting. Admittedly, it’s not surprising that the two travelers record like “events,” given travel offers newness, difference from the everyday, and one wants to comment on that; nonetheless, the echoes in their journals, given the lapse of time, strike me as quite beautiful. And eerie. Surely I see more because of my connection to my grandmother and my admiration of Bashō, but my interest goes beyond a family tie and a love of a poet. What really unites the two figures in their vastly different cultures and times, and what most intrigues me, is their desire to capture the feeling of the unknown, even if it’s sometimes through a list of observations. On the other hand, sometimes the weary travelers just want to find a place to sleep. A temple floor or a Motel 6.
Bashō’s journals began in the spring of 1689, Kitty’s in the spring of 1968, the same numbers in different arrangment. Bashō traveled from Edo (old Tokyo) to Japan’s seacoast, a treacherous journey that took nine months. He was on a pilgrimage, visiting temples, following questions, and, like my grandmother, he also visited old friends and historical places, recording the delights and sadness of meetings and departures. Like my grandmother, he also invested himself deeply in the changing landscape. During the time of their journals, Bashō was 46 and Kitty was 42. They both traveled with companions but spent a lot of time in the evenings or on the side of the road, recording the day’s events. They both ended at oceans, mouths of openness.
What follows are a few of their reflections paired, and arranged not by chronology, but by echo.
Bashō:
Yayoi: last seventh, slightly hazy dawn, “a waning moon, a failing light,” summit of Fuji vague, crowns of blossoming cherry at Ueno and Yanaka, when would they—and would they—be seen again? Friends, gathering since nightfall, came along by boat to see us off. Landed at Senju, sense of three thousand li* ahead swelling the heart, world so much a dream, tears at point of departure:
departing spring
the birds at their cries fishes’
eyes Amida tears
the yatate’s first words, the path taken looked not to advance at all. Those filling the way behind watched till only shadows of backs seemed seen.
*(li = 2.5 miles)
Kitty:
May 21- 1968 Tues- 6:20 leaving New Mexico. Up at 5:00 had breakfast. Margaret packed our cooler, all kinds of goodies, won’t have to eat out til we reach Calif. The sun is coming up now. We hated to leave, Margaret showed us such a good time, may see her on the way home. The weather was perfect, except for high winds in the morning that usually died off about 10:00. Margaret gave us a mesh car seat cover. Heading for Gallup, 131 mi. Passed a large field of goats, first flock we have seen. Numerous old adobe dwellings on both sides of the highway, some look inhabited.
Bashō:
Spent night at Iizuka. Bathed at hot-springs there, found lodgings but only thin mats over bare earth, ramshackle sort of place. No lamp, bedded down by shadowy light of fireplace and tried getting some rest. All night, thunder, pouring buckets, roof leaking, fleas mosquitoes in droves: no sleep. To cap it off the usual trouble cropped up, almost passed out. The short night sky at last broke, and again picked up and went on. But the night’s traces dragged, mind balked. Hired horses, got to post town of Ko’ori. Future seemed further off than ever, and recurring illness nagged, but what a pilgrimage to far places calls for: willingness to let world go, its momentariness, to die on the road, human destiny, which lifted spirit a little, finding foot again here and there, crossing the Okido Barrier in Date.
Kitty:
Arrived in Rawlins Wyoming at 6:30. Got this very nice Motel Room, color TV, wall to wall carpet, yellow & maroon tile bath and all the trimmings, only $8.25 which is very reasonable out here. We paid more for less last night. Hope we have this luck the rest of the trip. Had supper at a nice place. This is the Jade Capital of the world, so went to one of the shops, could have spent hours there, but Dad was in a hurry…. It is 10:30, Dad is in bed. Nothing on but politics (and me with color T.V.) so guess I will hit the hay, must leave early in the morning. June 5, 1968 (40, 374 mi)
(Next week I will publish a second installment of pairs).
