Overlooking the Ujigawa, the river in Uji, split by an artificial island, and fed from the nearby dam, with rapids below the island and above, we are finally in our room, and not only that but fresh out of the hotpools, the public baths as they have to be called—since to qualify as onsen the waters must arise naturally from the ground and possess minerals, a mineral quality; so that some onsen are coloured and some so hot when they bubble into the baths or pools there are attendants present to make sure bathers do not broil and cook.
From Waiheke to Uji:35 minutes by ferry; 25 minutes by Über; a checkin time two hours ahead of boarding time, which allows for seats together to be confirmed; 11.15 hours’ flight—with a supper, followed by 71 minutes of Dog Island; 5 hours sleep, on a partially full 777, since it had been cancelled because of the typhoon rolling in on Tokyo, was subsequently reinstated—adding to the likelihood of sleep being had, since more space to stretch out—however I could not get my body to fit the available empty space, the ma was all wrong, no matter how I curled and contorted to fill it—then breakfast, a gesture at Japanese style, with the rice handily deposited in a pleated cupcake paper; monorail from Haneda to Shinagawa 15 minutes; some circulation of bodies searching for the right line, the JR Nara line, to Uji—say 10 minutes—then, departing at 29 minutes past the hour, the local train, stopping at all the stations on the way, to Uji, 25 minutes later; walking, asking for directions, along the Ujigawa to our ryokan 20 minutes.
Time, Deleuze writes in his book on Kant, is not determined by movement, or change, and time itself does not move and change. Neither is time eternal. “It is the form of everything that changes and moves, but it is an immutable Form which does not change”—the unchanging, unmoving Form of what is impermanent, an impermanence that in the form of time is not eternal. In it, all things are impermanent. All things pass. That time passes without passing away is, Deleuze writes, a profound mystery.
