After starting with some heavy rain, it turned out to become a beautiful sunny morning in Fujikawaguchiko. I checked out of my hotel early, put my backpack at a coin locker and went for a walk around lake Kawaguchiko, taking photos and watching the clouds clear and show more of Fuji-san. The wait was indeed worth it – the clouds were becoming gradually sparser, until at around 11:00 AM Fuji-san had just a cloud “scarf” around a third of the way to the top. The moment felt sublime, like a blessing from Fuji-san for being there and bringing the witness and the memory of Carlos to this place.
I still had three hours of travel by bus to Hakone, the last stop before the full remaining week in Tokyo. Hakone is a mountain location that is part of the Tokaido road - a chain of post-towns between Kyoto (the old capital) and Edo (now Tokyo) where the flow of travellers and goods was met with resting and restoration, in the form of Ryokan – a traditional lodging also paired with a public hot spring bath, sometimes also with a private bath.
And the hotel I booked to stay in Hakone is a Ryokan. Although this one was not furnished in the traditional Japanese architecture choices, of tatami-matted floors and wood-and-paper panels, the space kept a distinct minimalism that counterbalanced beautifully with the central feature of the space – the hotel lobby is also a large library, with a wrap-around staircase into the higher levels and multiple spots to sit and read books.
That library, also with a large window towards the valley north of Mt. Hakone, left an impression on me. It felt like a place of solemn and quiet admiration of the journey so far, and of both rest and growth. And it felt, in a way, like the library of sketches and other projects that Carlos left available for everyone to read, learn from, remix and take on their own journey. That was such a core value that I identify in Carlos, that I feel deeply honored to keep on, as it is also a core value in me.
Carlos’s sketch that I chose to represent this picture is called “Technology is not neutral”, whose title and central phrase, quoted from technofeminist Donna Haraway in ‘A Cyborg Manifesto,’ serves as an example of how words can embody multiple meanings. I chose to keep the phrase but change the geometry in the representation, opting for the feeling of wrapping around the space that the inside of a 3D cylinder creates.