The Magic of Salt Cauldron

Over the Urato Islands in Matsushima Bay, a soft orange sunrise welcomes me back from walking my kid to the school bus. I do have to wander over to the open-air stairwell to see it clearly, and I do most mornings, still captivated by the water, the islands, and the mountains beyond. Several gigabites worth of photos of this specific view sit on hard-drives, only moved when the data gets too full for my phone to function properly.

As much as it is home now, I've only been living in the apartment for the last decade and in this country for the last third of my life. I first saw this view from the train windows on a trip with my then-boyfriend back in 2009. We lived on the other side of the county, where we met and worked in a tiny town in one of Japan's few land-locked prefectures. One look at the bay and I was hooked. How could anyone get enough of this? How could anyone look away?

Within a year, we were both living here in Shiogama, Miyagi, Japan, a place where he and his father were born and a place I quickly learned to call home. Shio translates to salt and gama in this case to cauldron, alluding to the history of the city as a salt manufacturer. This started as a religious practice carried out by the Shinto monks at Shiogama Shrine, a massive gorgeous shrine complex atop a 202 step stone stairway up a hill surrounded by untouched, centuries old woods.

The shrine also sports one of the best views in the area, great in any season. The cherry blossoms in spring take on a variety of colors due to the variety, including the Shiogamazakura, a double-bloom named for the city and grows at the shrine.

Clear days in summer and winter supply a fantastic view all the way to the islands.

As the leaves change in fall, the whole shrine area is a riot of color.

Shiogama Shrine is such a central part of the town that the biggest annual summer festival in the city stems right from it.

For this festival, the priests carry portable shrines down the stairs of the main shrine complex and out to the festive shrine boats where they are carted out to bless the Urato Islands before returning home. After the priests march the shrines out, local groups in matching costumes perform a dance down the main street, following the route that the priests will take back to Shiogama shrine's main entrance. Every year, my daughter and I dance in the parade with an international group as a specific historical tune blared over loud speakers.

Most of the rest of the group is made up of students and retirees, and we're usually some of the most obviously foreign. My daughter loves the attention but I am not a fan of how hot it gets when dancing down asphalt mid-day in May in a plastic happi robe. Still, we do it, both to say that foreigners do live here too and because it's a great way to feel like we are part of the community.

Japan isn't always the most welcoming place for us long-term expats, but I find Shiogama to be a good fit for me personally. Back in my native Texas, I was frequently frustrated by how many strangers would talk at me in public, making many bold assumptions based on my perceived age, gender, and race. People here still make assumptions but most of them don't bother to follow up with me on the subject. I may never be able to blend in to a crowd, but I can usually shop and stroll in peace.

Shiogama's size also appeals to me. While it isn't as famous or exciting as Tokyo, for me it provides a comfortable level of intrigue. There is just enough going on that I don't get bored and just enough people that not everyone is in my business. It's a decent little city and I usually genuinely enjoy living here.

The shortest way to explain my love of this town is magic. Not in the practiced slight of hand of an expert magician, but in the little miracles of everyday life turned special and unique. One of the biggest reasons I still want to be in Japan is that I still feel this sudden onset of fairy tale magic time and again even after living here for more than a decade. There's always some new, special thing to find, and not because it's a bustling metropolis churning out desperate novelties for attention. Weird beauty has been here for a while and isn't going anywhere.

That isn't to say that there haven't been difficulties. We nearly lost our apartment in 2011 when the tsunami rushed through, taking or displacing more than 20,000 people in a single afternoon. Only because of those gorgeous outer islands acting as a wave break was the toll in Shiogama not dramatically worse. If not for other immobile structures trapping some of the debris, our building could easily have been wrecked. We were extremely lucky.

I took this photo from our building in early April of 2011, when a lot of cleanup had already been done. Still, some boats trapped by the parking ramp for the shopping center down the street laid unclaimed, reminders of how close we came to losing so much more.

Earthquakes and tsunamis are terrifying, but if you're going to survive an earthquake, it will likely be in Japan where the Magnitude 7.3 quake that struck northern Japan in February 2021 caused mostly minimal cosmetic damage to walking paths. A quake of similar size would be deadly in most of the world, but things here are built to withstand the shaking.

Considering all of that potential devastation, it is amazing how many structures here have lasted hundreds of years. I am sometimes startled to find new parts of them that have obviously been here longer than I have.

Like this 800 year old tree inside of Shiogama Shrine. I found this in February 2020 and stood staring in shock. I love old trees and despite numerous trips to this shrine every year, I somehow managed to not see this big beautiful thing until then.

Another bit of strange magic that I found by accident stands at the main entrance to the shrine on these weird poles. I thought they were supposed to represent light posts, but the yellow things don't light up. One day while walking by, I heard strange old music from no obvious source and stopped to peer around. When I looked up, I saw something amazing and tried to take a video that I somehow lost. With determination, I returned earlier this week and waited for the show to begin.

This went on for about five minutes while I struggled to find a good position to film from. Just as I was starting to think that maybe there wasn't going to be more to this performance, the music changed and the first of the dolls appeared.

When those dolls were finished, I turned to see the second doll container already open and the lovely dolls inside performing some kind of fan dance.

As the second container closed, another song started but nothing else opened and I was left again to ponder if the thing was going to be over.

I was wrong! Moments later, the third unit opened with a song that had discernable lyrics. I personally couldn't understand or translate them, but they were words!

As the third unit closed, I came to stare the fourth in anticipation. The music that came on in the background was the same ancient song that we dance to for the Marine Day Festival and the dolls inside were dressed in the same outfit we wear with our International Group. What a surprise, in all this magic, usually so foreign to me, I actually found something I recognize!

When this most familiar of the doll containers closed, I assumed this was the end of the now 15 minute long interlude. Again, I was wrong.

One last piece came one and in unison that all opened and danced before their short song ended with the pre-recorded crashing of the waves. Below them, I felt overwhelming gratitude at even being able to witness it. I still don't know how often this performance occurs, and even my Shiogama-native husband had never seen it before watching the video I recorded. There's still so much to learn here. So much magic left to find.