A little green goes a long way.

Byline: WRITE ON By Ruthy Kanagy For The Register-Guard

Tokyo residents, like urban folk everywhere, spend most of their days confined to vertical slots. There is little room to stretch in packed commuter trains, narrow streets, high-rise buildings and compact apartments.

To seek relief from constrained living, many join the crush on weekends to escape to the mountains or sea and stand for hours on trains or sit in traffic jams.

Others head for the green spaces along Tokyo's major rivers. The Arakawa (Rough River) originates northwest of Tokyo in the mountains west of Saitama prefecture. Its waters course through nine cities and three ku (core districts) in metropolitan Tokyo before emptying into Tokyo Bay.

Because of severe flooding during typhoons, Arakawa was long ago tamed with straight concrete dykes and lined with wide bands of grass and willow trees.

Itabashi city maintains a series of baseball diamonds, a walking and biking path and a golf course on a stretch of the bank known as Arakawa Green Space.

On a typical weekend, scores of uniformed kids and adults kick, bat, swing and run on the grassy expanse.

There's plenty of room to relax, play catch, train for a marathon or ride a bike without fear of being mowed down by a car.

Retired men perch under beach umbrellas on the concrete embankment for a day of fishing. Occasionally, a speedboat passes by pulling a water skier. The water is clean enough to bring back fish, though not fit to drink.

Up and down the bank, park workers haul weed trimmers and heavy mowers to maintain the grass on giant green steps. At the end of July, these banks are filled with citizens gathered for the spectacular Itabashi fireworks, echoed by fireworks across the river in Saitama prefecture. The two-hour show invariably ends with Niagra Falls - a 2-kilometer-wide, flashing white line of cascading fireworks.

One Saturday in November, I rode my Sat R Day recumbent bike on the Arakawa bike path. I leaned back in my comfortable seat, feet pedaling straight ahead, hands resting on the underseat handlebars. A strange looking bicycle steered by a gayin (foreigner) attracted stares, waves and laughter.

One boy shouted, "Nan da korya? (What the heck is that?)' Several cyclists in racing gear nodded in acknowledgement and sped on by.

Gliding at the pace of a butterfly, I had an intimate view of nature shifting into fall mode. Silky fronds of susuki (pampas grass) waved above yellow flowers on green stalks. Clusters of tall, showy cosmos with filigreed leaves swayed in three shades of pink.

Children with long-handled nets chased red dragonflies, grasshoppers and praying mantis. Birds hopped and scratched for seeds. A cool breeze caressed my face, ruffling the hairs on my arms.

I took a deep breath. The air, though not pristine, was at least not overpowering city exhaust.

On the banks of the Arakawa, there is room to run, stretch, sit and claim a bit of horizontal green space as one's own.

Ruthy Kanagy is a free-lance translator, editor and writer living in Eugene.

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