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I want to befriend imperceptibility and begin my slow transformation over the years into an expert Japanese Sunday photographer with a long telephoto lens, bulging multi-pocketed technical vest, and familial support team standing at the ready nearby. Deep commitment to a hobby along a river seems healthy and right. But the expert photographers are now quite scarce along the north side of the Shakujii gawa. There is no more photographing of lazy cats absorbing heat, as they have retreated from the cold into the warmth of their mysterious cat communities in underground pyramids somewhere. Besides, the light is completely wrong now for photographing cats at 17:00 JST with any kind of lens. Although the photographers have departed, the colder weather has brought out the migratory expert fishermen to the south side. I used to see them further west upriver, vests also bulging with gear of a different sort, but now they sit on miniature folding chairs close to where I start my run. Fishing rods have been placed in shining holders pushed into the ground and lines have been stretched a short distance into a small pond on the river floodplain. I can't see any activity in the water and there doesn't seem to be anything living in the pond’s undersea world, but the slow movements of the fishermen indicate that they are doing something when they gently tug at invisible filaments. I never thought about it, but the expert fishermen might potentially be the expert photographers in disguise.

52

"The slow-flowing Shakujii River originates from Sanpoji Pond, Shakujii Pond, and Fujimi Pond, then becomes a rapid stream in the Ōji area. It is said that the river roared like a waterfall. Hence, the name of the river became Takinogawa (Waterfall River). Takinogawa became famous for its autumn colours after the 8th Shogun, Tokugawa Yoshimune, had them planted in this area in 1721. A woman stands in the foreground, enjoying the scenery."

Photographer unknown, date unknown. From the University of Nagasaki Library Metadata Database of Japanese Old Photographs in Bakumatsu-Meiji Periods, inherited data from the original “Japanese Old Photographs of the Bakumatsu-Meiji Periods.

The slow flow of potential story lines triggered by an image caption – an unknown photographer, an unknown date, an unknown woman, and a landscape – turn into a rapid and roaring set of possibilities if viewed from a certain perspective.

32

Earlier while heading west I saw a man wearing a backpack and technical vest photographing a willing cat on the north side of the Shakujii gawa with an expensive digital single-lens reflex camera. Shortly afterward on the south side of the river I saw a different man (I think) in knee length shorts holding a small plastic grocery bag in his left hand while leaning precariously over a bush to photograph an awkwardly located flower stem with the mobile phone in his right hand. Now I hear the sharp sounds careening off the river embankments of someone clipping their fingernails indicating that unfortunately, personal grooming is publicly taking place somewhere off in the distance beyond the river bend. Perhaps later in the day I will come across a small pile of waning crescent moons further west.