【英語雑記】家の前に出現したイグルー
みなさんカマクラって作ったことありますか？
私は生まれが鳥取県で、小さいころは結構雪が積もったので、父親が何回か冬にカマクラを作ってくれたのを覚えています。そんなに大きなものではなくて、子供が中に入って座れるくらいのサイズだったと思いますが、楽しかった思い出として記憶に残ってます。それから大人になって、関西や関東で暮らしている間は雪ともほぼ無縁になりましたが、札幌に引っ越してきて、家を持ってからというもの、今後は雪と「格闘」する日々になりました。
そんな終わりなき格闘を始めて5年が経ちますが、今年の冬は趣が異なる感じになりました。そう、カマクラを作ったんです！別に最初はそんな気もなかったんですが、ひょんなことから雪の中に穴を掘り始め、気がつくとそれなりの代物になっていて、いろいろと学ぶこと、感じることが多かったので、その顛末を書いてみたいと思います。
Last week, I built the igloo in the front of my house. Precisely said, it's a snow fort which was made by digging piled snow, not by stacking the ice bricks. But my kid, five years old, called it an "igloo". I asked him why he knew it. He explained he watched and learn the igloo in the cartoon "Curious George". Kids learn from anything. Anyway, at first, it's just a little hole in the snow, then after the three days labor, it got to be a cave which three of us, me and my wife and kid, could sit around the folding table inside of it. It might be a biggest family-made snow fort in the town, or even in the Sapporo city. It also have benches and shelves inside!
I can't remember why I got the aim to built such a structure. I have been lived in this house for more than 5 years. More than 10 years in Sapporo. There were lot of chances before this time, but it never happened. And even in this time, there was no definite external factor to made me dig a first lump of snow. I just climbed onto the piled snow on the side walk, and tried to shovel a few times, then wondered if I dig a hole, what would it be? And I started to dig, and kept digging for 20 minutes. Finding the little hole in the snow, my kid shouted "Wow, igloo! it's igloo, dad!" Hmm...thinking back, that might be a igniter for my illusion. After he called it an igloo, a vision creeped up to my mind. A round shaped snow cave. The folks wearing the animal furs. A bonfire in the snow. Such a primitive images. Then, I suddenly made my mind to build an "igloo". No matter we couldn't use the ice bricks, it still can be an igloo as long as we can believe it.
You may not know how the removed snow is like. It have been well solidified as like rocks, so it's almost like the ice wall. It has the height of more than 2 meters. At usual, we never touch to such a helpless thing. All we could do is just leave it and let it melt under the warm sun. But, once the illusion had been set the fire, there was nothing to stop me. This aluminum shovel became a reliable partner of this project. The rhythmic sound of thrusting a tip of shovel into the hard snow kept to stimulate my brain as well. Making the hole bigger more and more is intriguing process. Cutting the ceiling and wall inside the hole, designed the curves here and there. The vacant space inside the cave was expanding as I dig more. I even carved the shelve and bench out of snow wall. How many hours to took to such a size of shape? Maybe four or five hour total in three days. I don't know the average quality of snow forts, nor average time to take. Anyway, it came to show its magical shape.
Yeah, it's really a magic. The igloo. The snow forts. The snow cave. Whatever. No matter what it's called. It's beyond the structure anymore. He called it an igloo, a sort of winter fantasy for him. This real igloo suddenly showed up in front of his house allured, led him into an imaginable world which "Curious George" told him. He kept to want to spend a lot of time inside his igloo. So in the morning, I sipped a coffee with him who's drinking orange juice inside the igloo. After the lunch, we ate cookies and muffins at there. Then at the dinner, my wife cooked a hot pot, so we brought it into the igloo. Not only my son, my wife seemed to relaxed. She said that she has been feeling the alpha wave filling up her brain. What happened to us? The exotic texture of extraordinary nature. I could feel a small bubbles pulsating deep down the memory where is no light, total black since long ago. I don't what is exactly, but that seems like what shapes my own illusion. It's like a portal. The communication between modern times and ancient times. The igloo linked the real world and private world. Seeing me carving off the wall, my son said "You looks like using a magic with your shovel". What a prise.
Can you imagine how it's like being stay in the snow cave? It's weird. The sounds outside the cave are not what I used to as like usual in the front of my house. People and cars were coming and going outside the cave. I could heard them, but they sounds so that distant. In the cave, it's very quiet. Snow absorbed those sound and muffle them. And the texture of snow wall and ceiling gave me a strange impression. Sitting in the hole and looking up the dark sky, I was like dropped in the parallel world. I was in front of my house, but inside the cave, it was existing in different way. As my kid called it, it's like a magic.
どーですかね、これ。
この後でもう少し穴の中を広くして、夜は家族3人でおでんを食べました。夏に庭でバーベキューをする家はたくさんありますが、冬に穴倉を掘っておでんを食べてる家族はさすがにいないですね。そういえば、近所でカマクラ自体を見ることもないですが、札幌の人はそんな非合理的なものは作らないのかな・・・？
でもカマクラ作りは本当に楽しかったです。完全な非日常感を味わえます。今年は雪まつりにも行きましたが、雪まつりよりも「雪」を圧倒的に感じることができます。作っているときも、作った後に中に入って過ごすときも、トリップ感というか、現実的なしがらみをすべて忘れて無心になれるんですよね。ある種のセラピーのような効用があるのかもしれません。ただ、おかげで体はバキバキで、ずっと腰痛が治りませんが・・・
ちなみにこのカマクラ、この後にどうなったか？ちょっとした続きがあるんですが、それはまた次の回で！
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