Sayonara 2012

For 2012 my New Year's resolution was to write one haiku every day.  I did miss a few days, but I did much better than the last time a few years ago when this was my resolution and I failed to write any from January 2 through 8.
So, I'm actually a little surprised that this experiment is coming to an end. I think I may continue it. And in honor of the end of the first year and the fact that I'm leaving my book (one of those "daily diary" books that has a little inch wide space for each day) in Kansas when I return to Kyoto, I'm copying out some of the haiku that I actually like.

These are pretty loose haiku usually, many don't have seasonal references and anyway the official Japanese lists of seasonal words are actually secret (!?!) and in Japanese. I also usually follow the modern English haiku format of 2 stressed syllables, 3 stressed, 2 stressed, instead of 5 7 5 syllables, which doesn't really work with the form of English.

Over this year as I was writing them, I mostly felt like they were all really bad. Sometimes I just wanted to fall asleep and resented having to think and compose right before bed. Now, looking back though, I like a much bigger proportion of them than I remembered being interesting. I mostly thought that I hadn't written anything memorable and sorrowfully thought that rather than coming up with a larger number of decent haiku because I was writing an exponentially larger number of them than in previous years, instead I was writing roughly the same number of good haiku, and an exponential number of bad because-I-had-to haiku.  So I'm pleasantly surprised looking back and reading them all now to think that a larger number of them than I remembered resonate with me.

The other thing that's surprising me is how absolutely recent, right now, present some of them make me feel. Reading many of them, I remember the moment, the day, I wrote them on and it feels like it was just yesterday (and I've only read up to the beginning of February as I type this intro!)  January wasn't long ago at all. Something about these little forced verses brings it back with a surprising immediacy.

So, I suppose with a fondness for a year that feels so now, I will share with you some of the now of 2012, just in time for it to become then.

in Kansas.

Happy Christmas everybody. We wrangled babies all day, then as it quieted down, I continued with my exciting new project of resizing one of my kimono to fit my long monkey arms. 

Tomorrow: the serious work begins of finishing the diss edits in order to file before I go back to Japan.

Today: it was the last day of my defense/Christmas holiday vacation.

Sol's first Christmas

Solomon in full Chinese baby novelty drag.

Mimi & Yeye still keeping it real.

Greg and Nigel have a father son moment.

fyi: this is apparently not how you get the sleeve lining reattached to the exterior sleeve. But don't worry, I figured it out. I think.

Apocalypse

Today is/was the last day of the Mayan calendar. In New England, there's still one hour left for something to happen.

But here's what happened to me.

It was my PhD dissertation defense day and it didn't really go how I expected it would.

It goes like this: I left the dorm in Kyoto at 1pm, went to the station via bus and caught the Haruka express train to Osaka Kansai airport. Where I caught a 6pm plane to San Francisco, where I arrived 5 hours before I left at 11am on December 20.  Brian met me there and we ate sandwiches in the airport. Then I checked back in, realizing somewhat sadly that I was not even yet 2/3rds of the way to Providence. Took the plane to Boston that landed shortly after midnight, where Dad and Dad's friend Roger picked me up. They are in town for one week from Kansas to remodel the bathroom. They are not from Around Here, and had had trouble getting the right terminal, so we went on a cross-country journey through Logan to find our way back to the rental car. Then I was supposed to direct them home in my not-slept-transPacific-traveling-for-24-hours-straight state. I did that, but most of the 93 south interstate in Boston turns out to be closed, so we were sent through the night in the rain around central Boston trying to get on to the interstate while detour after detour took us past three closed entrances.
We did eventually make it on to the interstate and home by 2:15am. Then, and here is where I make a critical mistake, we all went to bed.


Did you see what happened there?
I had thought because they're working on the house, they would make noise and I would wake up.  I thought they had heard me talking about wanting to get up and read through the diss beforehand. I thought I'm all jetlagged and I'll wake up at weird hours. I thought they might realize that I don't have an alarm clock with me because it's in Japan and the apartment is rented right now.  I didn't say, hey make sure I get up.

So instead, they were really really quiet to let me sleep, and crept around and went out.  But luckily they realized my cell phone was left in the car, and came back to bring it to me at noon. Where I was sleeping, expecting to be woken up by the noise of two other people in the apartment. So Dad knocks on the door and says, hey, what time did you want to get up? And I said, what time is it? And he said, it's noon. And then I was extremely up and running around everywhere feeling extremely unhappy about the situation, but also knowing with a small part of the back of my mind that this was extremely hilarious.
So, here's another thing: I didn't bring any clothes in my suitcase, because I knew I had stuff stashed in the basement here and I wanted to save all my suitcase space from Japan to bring home tea stuff. I had one sweater which I never wear, so I figured I'd just bring it home, one skirt which I had used to cushion some ceramic stuff and two pairs of underwear, which I had brought just in case.  So I put those things on.  I couldn't find any socks, and I had planned to go down and raid the box of stored shoes for appropriate shoes, but there was no time for that, so I put on my airplane traveling grey boots and ran out the door with laptop and enough money to desperately buy a coffee and bagel.

Let me make this clear: I defended a PhD dissertation on clothing and fashion today and I had literally nothing to wear. Literally.

Dad dropped me off at the bookstore coffee shop in gale force winds in multiple directions and rain and I got a coffee and bagel and then struggled to the building clinging to my umbrella pulling me in every direction and coffee spilling down the bagel bag and my coat and gloves.  The weather today was truly Mayan apocalypse weather with a cascade of pouring rain water onto the front steps to dodge and the fight with a full bag and my flyaway umbrella.

Inside, I had about 15 minutes before I had to be before the firing squad and then it was go time with my three committee members, one of whom came in rather storm-battered from Harvard today. As one might imagine from a defense that started less than 11 hours after the defender arrived in the country from the other side of the globe, and was therefore defending her dissertation half-asleep at the equivalent of 3am, it started rough.  They told me I looked tired. I told them it was three am. I did not admit that I didn't even have socks, much less a coherent plan for the defense.  I did not do the best job at the beginning summarizing what I was getting at and where I think I'd got.
Luckily, it got better and they actually said that some things about it are good, which I was not myself any longer convinced of, having been with it for so long and familiarity having bred both contempt and desperation.  So that's exciting. In between excellent and helpful critiques and they HATE the title and want it changed immediately, a new term was even proposed for my methodology: a Carrigerian reading of something.  And they said I could have a good book on my hands after I do the expansion and revisions. That it would be *hot* even, with some of the transnational and post-imperial work. Hot.

So those things are good. There are revisions to be completed over the next few weeks-- exceptions were made to accommodate the fact that today was the only time between Sept and next May that all 4 of us could be in one room. And I'm determined to make good on those accommodations and turn in in a couple weeks an awesome dissertation with excellent formatting and references and smart stuff in it. And go back to Japan on January 7 a very relieved and less-stressed Dr. Carriger.

T - 45

I'M LEAVING TOWN! 
World tour commences in 30 minutes.

Osaka to [San Francisco] to Boston by midnight Dec 21.

Defend the dissertation in Providence at 1pm, Dec 21.

Retreat to the bosom of my family Dec 23.

Go to LA, Jan 5.

To Tokyo, Jan 7.

Back to Kyoto, a free woman, around Jan 10.


Love to all and to all a good night.

Everything now

Hi all! Ohisashiburi!  Sorry it's been so long.  Busy busy busy busy.
The poetic name for December is "Month of Priests Running" which is supposed to mean that even lazy priests are busy in this month.
The chakai is finished, the dissertation is all in (except for fixing up the bibliography) and the defense is in (this is truly unbelievable to me) one week.
I thought this would be two weeks of recovering and calming down, but it hasn't been that way this week. I'm still not getting full nights of sleep-- I wonder whether it just became a habit not to get to bed at a reasonable hour. That, and we've been drinking tons of koicha (thick tea) this week, which might be keeping me up.

Anyway, this morning, I was the first Midorikaisei out of the dorm and it was gorgeous gorgeous outside--early morning sunlight filtering through the mist and trees. It was, after the pain of waking up and the pain of getting dressed in the cold, hovering over a space heater

(about that: it's such a natsukashii--nostalgic--feeling. When I lived in Japan before I did the same thing.  I didn't heat my room in the mornings, instead just rocketing out of bed, making coffee and then piling my clothes in front of the space heater and standing in front of it to get dressed in the morning.  The checkered way that each garment I pull on has warm spots and cold spots like giraffe spots of heat and cool is such a funny and only-in-Japan feeling to me now.)

Okay. After the unpleasantness of getting up, stepping out into the dawn was a welcome gift, and I felt suddenly overwhelmed with the weight--the living freight of all the people, all the places, all the possibilities: what I've done, what I can do. The world felt very welcoming and full of care for me.
I thought for a second that maybe I should be fully present in just this moment, not the intoxicating and overwhelming feeling of all possibilities and memories and cares at the same moment, but then I also thought well, all these things are present within me simultaneously too.

I have this feeling from time to time-- an absolutely exhilarating feeling of immense richness and possibility... plenitude maybe?-- and it's also totally paralyzing. I can't focus on any one thing to do it when I'm totally prostrated with wonder. I think I need a course in fascination management.

It is luxurious and a privilege and it also kills me a little bit, this flooding unnameable feeling of loving people who are spread so thin around the world--and some who are no longer on it. And strangely, I seem to keep on functioning each moment, despite being scattered to the four winds.

And of course, part of it is the here part. I have that moment every day-- the what am I doing here?! This became normal! When did it become totally normal that I do tea every day and wear kimono and this is, like, WHAT WE DO?
And it became normal that we hang out in weird anonymous institutional rooms on beds with no sheets in Chaken (the building with the boys' dorm as well as all our common areas, like the utensils storage and a kitchen and a little tatami keiko (practice) area.) It became standard that we would work work work on arts and crafts and sweets until 9:35 when we had a few minutes left before curfew to throw everything together and rush down the stairs and out the door and not get locked in the boys dorm overnight, or cause a massive scandal. That's what I do now. For about the last five years of my PhD I've been dreaming about doing material, practical things that have lots of concrete evidence of my having done them (unlike writing, the bulk of which materiality evaporates in drafts and files and the ether).  And I got it. We are making making making. Mostly making feelings, but in such close quarters with hospitality, I see just how material feelings can be.

Everywhere, every second
every attachment, sweet and
heavy on my shoulders.

Chakai tomorrow~!

Tomorrow is the Christmas chakai, probably our biggest event of the Midorikai year.  It's been pretty epic.  The day after that, the last part of my dissertation is due.  (aiee!) That is also even more epic.

So I've been busy. But more very soon, like after about 3 days, because I'm not actually going to make that dissertation deadline.



And in other news, hi Margie and anyone who found yourself here by way of Sweet Persimmon!  Hajimemashite, welcome, and looking forward to hearing from you.

more very soon.

But first, I'm going to sleep on my kaiki in hopes that I can memorize utensil information and very formal Japanese through osmosis.

30 November

Night has fallen
but still the sky clings
to shreds of blue.

I remember nothing
of summer's heat, yet marvel
at time's flight.

Big days, busy days

Been busy. There's about 9 days left before I turn in the conclusion to my dissertation and then two weeks after that, defense in Providence.
Everything else.

And in those 9 days, we're all feverishly working to bring together the Christmas chakai for about 120 people, including the iemoto (grand master) of the tea school and his family. Basically, the emperor of tea.

And also Glenn Pereira sensei is here! We have to hang out!

And yeah, writing that diss.

So, you may not hear too much from me over the next couple weeks.

But here's this to tide you over: I mailed a package to an APO address last Wednesday, but it turns out that EMS priority air won't mail such packages. And here's how I found out: the post office (just a block from my house) sent a letter to tell me so the day after I'd mailed it. Then the next day I got another one and a verbal message from the lady that tends our front door at the dorm in the day time, but the post office was closed when I went by on Friday (it was a holiday). The thing about the post office is that we are at school during almost every single hour every single day they are open. This particular one isn't even open on Saturday. So it's hard to get there, and I seized a lucky moment when I mailed the package in the first place.

So two letters, then on Monday I got a note delivered to me after afternoon lessons: the post office had CALLED KOKUSAIBU (the International Affairs division of the school) to try to get me the message. I don't even know how they knew to do that, except that I suppose when a foreigner in kimono comes to the post office to mail packages two blocks from the international headquarters of a tea school, they might draw some conclusions.
Then when I got home that night, almost half an hour after the post office had closed again, I got a call on my cell phone-- it was the post office. Sheesh.

I explained that I am always working during their opening hours, but that I'd try to come the next day (today) which was sumikiri, so we had a little more time, although most of the extra time we looked like coal miners.

So I went and did it, covered with charcoal dust and in my samue (monk-type work clothes) at lunch time.  And then it got more hilarious. I had been sort of annoyed anyway when I sent the packages because they asked if there was a letter in the boxes. Not sure what that would mean, I said no and yes to them although they all had a little note of some kind in them. So, the one that went "with letter" also turned out to be the biggest and most expensive, and worst, it turned out that without letter the postage was 2050 yen. With a letter inside, it was 2800 yen. I thought about saying, oh, sorry there *isn't* a letter in there, but I didn't have the nerve. Even though that would be the Japanese way.

So, I lost 800 yen, was minorly annoyed. THEN TODAY, since I can't send to an APO with EMS, the price for the box jumped up to 4200 YEN!!!  I asked, isn't there another way? What if it weren't airmail? She said, it can be small packet with no letter. How much is that? 2050 yen. 

Yes, it cost 2150 yen to have a letter in that box. I said, I'm taking out the letter, and I ripped open the tape and took out the little slip of envelope and then they sealed it back up while I did the customs form.  So NOW they owe me 650 yen.  It turns out the post office pays refunds in stamps.  So I got as many international mail stamps as I could and a couple random ones to make up the difference.

And I wish I could say I stuck one 110 yen stamp on that letter and mailed it right next to the box it would've cost 2150 yen to mail, but I didn't. I hadn't written the address on properly.

Funny.

消し道 - The Way of Erasing

The other day we had a lecture by Matsunami-sensei who is an old man who only two weeks ago completed treatment for stomach cancer. He is a zen abbot from Daitokuji. He is clearly still very weak from chemo or radiation but he is also totally amazing and I kinda love him.

The most amazing thing about him, possibly, was the way he erased the white board when he needed more space. He was extremely deliberate about it, erasing along the lines, then elegantly dodging and dipping here and there to pick up the last stray marks.  It looked to me exactly like doing Japanese calligraphy in reverse---
lines of text disappearing into the board through delicate serpentine twists and turns.

I have decided to become a student of Keshido-- The way of erasing.

Although I know nothing of tomorrow...

...I have made plans:

Going to Providence on December 20 until December 23. Brutally, depressingly short amount of time and I know many of my favorite people won't be there. If you WILL be there, let me know!

I defend the diss on December 21. It has been a long strange ride. I hope it will end on this shortest day and I can begin the long journey into the light.


December 23-January 5:  KANSAS. Holler if you'll be there too.

January 5-7: LOS ANGELES.  If you are in LA too, let me know.

January 7 to ?: TOKYO. HANG OUT WITH ME!?

January 12: Back to Kyoto.

New strategy

Everytime something annoys me, I vow to try to avoid doing that thing. Working under the premise that the things that tend to irritate me in other people are usually things that I am afraid I myself do. Also working under the premise that I can't change other people, but attempting to avoid the feeling that there's nothing I can do about my situation.

Example: if someone constantly one-ups me as a form of conversation, and I find that irritating that they seem to be always trying to maneuver me into the lesser position (be that "less stressed out," "less accomplished," "less interesting"), then be careful not to engage in conversation in that way. If I notice myself do it, make a conscious effort to make the next statement in some other way.

Example: If someone hurts my feelings or frustrates me by scolding me or correcting me, think of ways to avoid hurting feelings or frustrating people when I suggest a change or correction.

The thing is around here, as much as there are a million rules, vast oceans of things each moment don't have a specific rule attached (we're in "taste" school, and how do we arbitrate a rulebook of taste?!), and then we all have to decide amongst ourselves what to do (but of course as some people are more equal than others, sempais' notions of what we should do carry more weight than kohais'). Then we do that thing, and live with the consequences. That's the bit where failing better comes in-- which does not mean making the less-bad mistake--but means learning to be corrected with more grace and fewer excuses.


Not sure if I sound like a broken record with how often I reiterate the theme-of-the-blog, but then if I'm still learning it every time new, then maybe it doesn't feel so old to read about it either. Or maybe it does. Let me know. I enabled comments more fully (although if you publish anonymously, do please sign your name so I know who you are!)

Kencha at Tenryuji

We went to kencha for the founding abbot of Tenryuji zen temple in Arashiyama (a beautiful mountainous area of west Kyoto, or west of Kyoto, depending on how you want to think of it). We all sat in the main hall, ranged on two sides with iemoto in the middle. Midorikai and the other gakuen students are always first there, but always grouped in the back. I suppose it's a privilege to get to go, but we're supposed to be unobtrusive and self-effacing, so we get there first then fill up the back seats to make the room look nice and full. Seriously. This happens in tea seatings too-- if it looks sort of thin, they grab helpers and have us go out and be guests so it's full.
So, back row. And as much as I'm fairly tall for a girl in Japan, I'm short waisted and by no means an Amazon, so I couldn't really see anything unless I hitched myself up on my toes instead of kneeling properly. I did that some, but then I also didn't want people to think it was because I'm not capable of sitting, and also, it's kinda uncomfortable and I couldn't see that much more anyway. So kencha. Like the other kenchas, the "Mizuya boys" (these are the junior tea assistant guys, who are simultaneously high-ranking amongst us Urasenke tea folks above non-Mizuya employees and students because they are part of the iemoto's household and they are probably on their way to gyotei-sensei (which is the highest ranking tea teachers), but also very much like domestic servants, because the part of the household they're in is the Mizuya--the kitchen-- doing all the labor of running the Urasenke estate Konnichian at all hours, stoking fires, prepping ash (haigata), packing, carrying-- everything.) So anyway, Mizuya boys (many of whom are, to be fair, men) set everything up, keep an eye on everything; iemoto pops out at the moment when everyone is set and does the temae (procedure).

Here's a shot from waiting:

last girl standing

Someone observed the other day that Midorikai is like kindergarten.  Currently this is mainly because as soon as one person gets sick, everyone gets sick. And it's not just MIdorikai, it's the whole 55 students of Gakuen. Blame the bit where we make food and drink for each other all day long in charcoal heated non-ventilated rooms and drinking from the same bowl half the time, then washing everything in cold water without soap and shivering through lectures in unheated classrooms. I guess. And spending 12 hours a day together and not sleeping that much.

Anyway. I'm the ONLY ONE of NINE Midorikaisei who hasn't been sick or started to come down with a sore throat in the last five days. The last few days it was Mike and Olya in masks, today we had the three "masketeers" in their face masks, plus Sarah under some other weird bad weather, Paivi with no voice at all, and Damian saying he has a sore throat too.  I feel like the last human in the zombie apocalypse surrounded by the toxic reanimated corpses of my friends. I am not going without a fight, but it's actually kinda lonely being a survivor.

I'm so paranoid. At least if I got ill, there would be no more hesitating before picking up every little thing, talking to anyone, sitting next to anyone, going out into the cold, eating drinking, etc.  I'm pounding vitamins and Vitamin C and ginger drink-- just like a sick person anyway.

But I WILL NEVER SURRENDER!

Inoko Matsuri

At the end of a long tumultuous day of good and exciting things and stressful things and too many feelings, we finally made it out to try to find the Inoko Matsuri-- Inoshishi (Boar) festival-- to celebrate the boar who protects from the dangers of fire.

So here's how it goes: first they ceremoniously make mochi for the emperor to make him nice and strong. And then they take it in a procession headed up by two lanterns on poles and a big slow pounding drum in the dark to the imperial palace (although, yes, the emperor lives in Tokyo now and hasn't lived here for 150 years. Habits die hard.) After that, when the procession gets back to Go'o shrine they start making mochi for everybody! And we all can get in line to pound the mochi, which I did, and there is an awesome childlike song we all sing while pounding. 

We ran into Imagawa sensei and a bunch of gakuen students too.

 It all looks like this:

関 Kan

関 Kan.

Kan is a barrier but also a gate, like a checkpoint. This is a useful zen idea-- something that is a barrier is also a gate, a limen and a connection. There are tons of commentaries on this notion, and "Kan" is a popular zen scroll.  For me, I often think of 関 when I'm up against something that is giving me trouble, usually here at Midorikai that trouble is attitude trouble. This would be because we are in a high pressure situation in which the bulk of the work, the massive underpart of the iceberg of which tea procedure is the proverbial tip, is monastery-like, working on the self. There is so much time for self-reflection. Now, I don't think everyone exactly does this, but it's what I find myself doing more of than ever before.

So 関. It's the first of a new month (always extremely busy anyway with special greetings and classes and scholarship receipt) and not just a new month but a new season for Tea-- the opening of the ro sunken hearth-- what is called "chajin no shougatsu"-- Tea people's New Year-- and all that comes along with it (yesterday was a big cleaning day and today there was a special event where gyotei sensei made tea for all the students). For all that all this stuff was great, it's also hard: lots of new things to deal with--for instance, my continuing curse/blessing of having to do everything first of the four of us came true again (at first it was because I'm oldest and the first alplabetically, but it has become cosmic: just by the random rotation of daily duties I've ended up being the first to try out first the brazier charcoal setting and then today the first again randomly to do first charcoal in the sunken hearth.) So that was hard.

There was the icky moment where after we'd all sat down in the waiting room with the sempai ahead of the kohai the sempai, Mike leaned over and informed us that we should rearrange when we went into the tea seating so that the two boys were first and the girls afterward (just as the Japanese students do). Well, I assented, then as we sat there and I relayed the message, I suddenly realized that that idea was repugnant to me. Not because I wanted to be first personally (and anyway, we wouldn't be-- we were in the room with the third years who would obviously all be first, and our boys went after their girls, etc etc.), but because I think it's wrong to perpetuate something so stupid and right to try in a very tiny way to set an example that it's okay for female people to sit first sometimes, and sometimes not.  Now, we spend a lot of time compromising and doing TONS of things we wouldn't otherwise do, including things in which we (I) acquiesce to gender inequalities that I think are wrong.  Let me be quite clear: I do this all the time. Every day at chorei the boys sit highest and the girls are ranged below them. Even though Damian's the youngest of we four, he sits above me, and then we're in alphabetical order. I acquiesced to that and I acquiesce again every single day by sitting in my assigned spot.
But for some reason this felt different. Part of the reason was that it was a disruption to rearrange ourselves as we all flowed smoothly out of the tea room and into the tea room, and because we kohai had whispered amongst ourselves  and decided it was wrong to do it and we would rather not. Because Paivi also thought it was wrong, I was bolstered in the feeling that we should not do this thing, because it was wrong. And Sarah and Damian seemed to agree, but then in the moment there was rustling and whispering and the whole line was stupidly held up while they tried to get Damian into line in front so it was no time to explain that we had carefully considered the matter and that we would actually prefer to go in the order that we had chosen. It was faster and easier to acquiesce again and then in the end we very last girls weren't able to see much of anything because we were ranged around behind the back of the host while the boys were able to see. Which is also not a big deal-- it happens all the time, but it started to be a thing.
When I brought it up afterward, it turns out that the sempai all thought like we did, but have mellowed over six months. And apologised for the way it got handled, since part of the problem was the high-stress situation of having no say, no plans, and no ability to work out what was right. It also turns out that they'd been told at other events to have the boys go first. Which makes it a little harder to strike a tiny blow for gender equality if you've been told not to. On the other hand, it's only just now writing this that I've suddenly realized that the gakuensei may not have phrased their instructions in the form of a command, like "it's bad if you don't have the boys first" but they might have just been telling us how they do it, because it is of course a courtesy to explain the accepted way of doing things. Maybe if in the moment we'd just said (the we here is Midorikai. I wasn't here yet.) "we don't do it that way, we do it by age or experience." they would have shrugged and gone on.

This is one of those problems. The line for a "foreigner" is always, no matter what, different. What a Japanese person can do is not necessarily what a foreigner can do without censure. And vice versa.  Now, the kneejerk American-esque reaction would be to say that's ridiculous and that there's no special essence of Japaneseness that is impenetrable by foreigners. Of course I agree with this. BUT. Pragmatically speaking, it's never going to be like that. No matter if we act totally interchangeable with our Japanese counterparts, it won't make a difference. We will still be perceived as outsiders in certain ways. So I guess I'm saying, why not embrace that discrimination that will remain, and do what you think is right instead of doing what you think is wrong, just because it's what everyone else is doing? In this crazy gig of ours, the same thing as everyone else is almost always going to be the right thing. But I'm suggesting that it won't always be.

Now, to leave this on a bit of a cliffhanger, this tangent I went off on isn't what ate me up all day. A combination of things did; mostly just exhaustion combined with a series of unfortunate events. Worries about other people and a measure of self-pity for some other things that are going on. But it's quite late now, and I need to go to bed. So we'll call this Kan Part I.

And anyway, there's a late afternoon like this:

Shall we just watch the sky instead?

Things I saw in Kyoto over the weekend.

 I used this coffee to get work done at Cafe Kocsi .

 I stumbled across the Circle K where Sakamoto Ryoma was assassinated in 1868. I will be Sakamoto Ryoma for Halloween I think.

 The modern, the postmodern, and the premodern next door.

 October berries and October foliage.

 Yatsure-cone. For Cone.

 Precious.

 This gate that guards a palm tree, amongst, presumably, other things.

 A chai this time, at Social Kitchen, a very good cafe and meeting space that is selling local organic vegetables and rice (in the background).

 This house. Look at their nice wall. Look at their air conditioner. I like this house.

 It rained on the berries. The berries held rain.

間

Iwashimizu

Finally, our first kenchashiki (a ritual tea offering). We went to Iwashimizu, a shrine on Otokoyama--male mountain. I made incessant jokes about how weird it was to be going to Man Mountain, but no one seemed to think it was as hilarious as I did.
There turned out to be FOUR bowls of tea and sweets waiting for us on the top of man mountain.  First, watching the kencha. It was in here:

We had front row seats, except behind all the Shinto guys and right next to the bugaku guys and the Odaiko -- the really really really big drum. So big that before the event started, the Shinto guy who bangs it came out and apologized to everyone that it was going to be loud.  It was loud, and I turned back to watch him just in time to see Mika dai-sempai (Mika, who is a Finnish grad of Midorikai currently in the one-year course and therefore sempai to our sempai) and a few others jump in their seats when it sounded a second time.
It's lucky the Shinto guys (and one girl) who had the seats in front of us wear interesting outfits because after they sat down we could really see nothing else.

Here we all are, taking pictures before the event starts. Lindsey is using her invisible camera.

So, the ceremony begins and the kamisama get all kinds of gifts given to them on matching red elevated trays, including sake, a big gorgeous fish, huge cakes of mochi, a tray full of vegetables, a tray full of fruits, and then a tray full of little sugar sweets of the same kind that we would get to eat later. They are passed along by the Shinto guys, starting with Shinto girl, then guy to guy to guy, and eventually they disappear inside the shrine, like a fire bucket brigade of nice foods.
Then o-iemoto (grand master) goes up to the platform in the front and makes tea. At the key moment when tea is about to go in the bowl, he puts on a face mask, to avoid breathing on anything that will go to the shrine. When the tea is done, he hands it off and the head Shinto guy takes it into the shrine.

Okay, after about 45 minutes of waiting in our seats, then 30 minutes of ceremonialness, it's time for the tea for mere mortals. We have a long sheet of tickets that guarantee our entry into all the events.

Olya models our slip of tickets to all the events.

First up, the haifuku seki, where we have the same tea and sweets as were used in the initial demonstration.

Linda reveals how big these trays really are...

These are pretty delicious higashi, with a brown sugar interior.

Our gakuensei (Japanese student) colleagues from Urasenke were serving the tea at this seating, just at tables near the shrine.

Now off to the lower area of the complex where gakuensei were also hosting an outdoor nodate seating. We got booted from our assigned seating by the arrival of the iemoto and family, so we went off to eat our tenshin soba lunch (Tenshin is "sky-heart"-- what a nice and nonsensical thing to call a tiny lunch. Or I think that's the kanji. I can't quite remember now...)

Now we entered the wrong seating for the outdoor seating because we'd been unable to enter our assigned one earlier. So we were a bit crowded:

As you can see, although he watched nothing, Hamana-sensei still got good service from Miyazaki-san (3 year at Gakuen). Sitting at the back of this seating was awesome for kimono observation:

I don't have one of these kimono bags. This outdoor seating was lighthearted, with this cool cartoony futaoki, and a big childlike bowl made by Ennosai.

It was the day before October, so they had a wacky pod for a flower:

Fruits and seeds and non-flower flowers are considered appropriate for October, nagori season-- when we use everything up, so things are old and worn and patched and so on. It is obviously the awesomest time of the year.



Then we went to the honseki (the main seating); only the boys from Gakuen can serve at the honseki, which I am not too cool with, but it's not up to me. The honseki seated about 30 people in two rows, and it was in a spectacular old wooden building, with the outer edge wall of windows hanging out over a drop with trees and greenery all around. In the tokonoma there was a scroll by Ito (!!! 8th generation iemoto!) which said Yama wa yobu, bansai koe. (The mountains call "bansai," referring to the old Chinese tradition of going out into the mountains to shout blessings on the emperor where they will reverberate and echo.) Nice for a building on a mountain hanging over the edge of an abyss. (Okay, so there was a parking lot down there if you looked straight down, but looking out was awesome.)
No pictures in there, but here's the extra space they added to the garden for accommodating everyone's shoes outside:

And now, we saunter down the long path to the fuku seki, in the wacky hotel building:

This seating, in a big tatami room in the basement of the weird hotel, had some really really nice dogu (utensils)-- although (and I hadn't realized this before coming here) the really nice stuff, bowls and chashaku and things, are just displayed and not used. You can look at them in the waiting room, and then totally other really-nice-but-not-as-nice-as THAT stuff is used to actually make tea. There is an interesting surrogation, performance studies thing going on there... Of the actually-used items, what really stands out in my memory is that there was a gorgeous Chinese basket, very intricately woven, with a whopping 9 different types of flowers. They used a fabulous yatsure buro nakaoki, which is an old iron brazier that is so old that its top is rusted away and so you have to add a stand (gotoku) inside to hold your kettle out of the fire. This is super nagori for October, and totally awesome for me with my obsession with recycling.
Hamana sensei ended up shoukyaku (first guest) and did a nice job getting the stories of all the items from the host.
One thing that I didn't appreciate until afterward when we were looking at everything again was the Nintokusai futaoki-- bamboo with maki-e designs added. Totally gorgeous and understated.

Thus concluded, we all gathered upstairs at the weird chrysanthemum couch,

got ourselves in order, got our stuff and the boys changed out of their fancy pants *in public*. [I will not repost the picture here, even though it is totally awesome.] Then back down the cable car

and then, because it was still early (only like 3pm or so) some of us took a little trip to Gion where we saw a real live Maiko and were ourselves obsessively photographed by passersby as we wandered the streets.
But we weren't above photographing ourselves either:

Big day. One of many to come.

This rainy Tuesday

It was rainy today. It rained hard in the morning, and we laughed and moaned about the trouble it caused because today was also the day of Olya's chaji. We hated to wear our nice clothes in the rain (even our not-nice work clothes were a problem because we had to go to chorei morning meeting and sit on the tatami and were afraid to leave damp spots, or worse, dye the tatami blue from our wet navy blue knees.

We cleaned the chado kaikan building and then we went off to change. And I checked online quickly when I got home, and the first thing I saw was the news that my dear friend from university, Jim Benton, has died suddenly. He was barely older than me, he and his wife Meredith just adopted a baby girl less than a year ago. It is stunning. Mostly I feel stunned.

I haven't seen Jim in a few years, and it's been awhile since we spoke. And he is one of the best people. The best people. I got to know Jim when we went on the Asia Humanities trip to Thailand, India, and Japan over ten years ago. Which is to say, I was getting to know and love Jim the first time I ever came to Kyoto.


And so now I'm here and he's gone. It rained. It was Olya's chaji, so after I read the news, I got dressed. I didn't feel overtly distraught but every single detail of my kimono fought me. (This is true. This is the sort of thing one would make up, but here's really what happened.) The collar was all wrong, the folds wouldn't lie flat. Every fiber of that fabric rebelled and it took far longer than usual, and midway I had a little cry, and kept dressing, and it felt too tight and all askew, and then there was no more time so I put my things together and I went. And bizarrely, then my clothes calmed down and they didn't keep pulling and bunching in weird ways and it was fine.

We went to the chaji, and because of the rain, all the rooms were intensely dark and often we were quiet. So sometimes I thought about Jim, and I thought about how the death of a friend too young may be exactly what teaches us the importance of ichigo ichie (one time, one meeting)--the preciousness of every moment and the things and people we are lucky enough to know. The chashaku (tea scoop) Olya used today was by Daisosho and it was called Ichie. The rest of the time, I thought about where we were and what we were doing, and it seemed like the right thing to do. To think of Jim when I thought of Jim and to think of whatever else was going on when I thought of that.



It was raining, and as much as it added hassle for us as guests, and surely was a pain for the hosts too, it was also incredibly, indescribably beautiful. And that's another thing that tea and death have in common. They remind us of the inadequacy of words. I think they do this by rehearsing the same cliches and platitudes until either their total uselessness is revealed, or we finally break through their pointlessness and realize, really realize, what someone is trying to say to us.

It was raining, so we used rojigasa (garden umbrellas) and we have to hold them over each other while using the tsukubai to wash our hands and mouths:

Olya leaves from filling the tsukubai basin.

The chaji was lovely, although I think with 11 people we were all hurting by the end. I did pretty well, but I had the lucky spot of being last guest, so I was able to get up and walk more often than almost everyone except Mike, the first guest. In our first two chaji I've been first guest and last guest, so so far I've been extremely lucky indeed as far as getting to exercise my legs.

Then in the main seating the brazier was a yatsure buro-- an iron brazier that is so old its top has rusted off (or has been made to look that way.) Yatsureburo is perfect for the nagori feeling of October--the month for using up all the old stuff before "Chajin no shougatsu"-- Tea people's new year-- at the beginning of November, when we open the new jars of tea and change to the sunken hearth (ro). As you can imagine, I love nagori season. My whole life aesthetic is nagori.

And of course the wistfulness of the end of a summer, the chill, the dark, and the ends of things before a bright new beginning, is a feeling commensurate with mourning a friend.

The scroll was by Itsugai roshi, the zen teacher of Daisosho, and it said "The bamboo has nodes above and below." Olya described the year at Midorikai, now just a little over halfway done, as like this bamboo. They've learned a lot, they have a lot to learn.

Considering my particular circumstances, perhaps we could also say that just as the nodes in bamboo are ends and beginnings and neither ends nor beginnings all at the same time, we too will go on, past these big life events. We can only learn how to keep growing past these tragedies, and we know there will be others. We can try to make every moment one we would not regret if it turns out to be our last one.

As much as we'll fail at this often, we can hope for many more moments to do better with.

...

It is quite strange perhaps to mix up a description of a chaji with a memorial to a friend, but I have two reasons. One is that this is how life is. This is what my day was like. I learned that I lost a friend and life went on its scheduled course. The big and the small events are jumbled up together.
The second I will explain by describing an epiphany I had today at the chaji: There's always this strange paradox where we (at least in English) always talk about tea as something quite meaningful but then sit around fetishizing really expensive objects. But as Olya gave the descriptions for the items she'd chosen, they were all stories emphasizing various aspects of her relationship with the guests (especially Mike the shoukyaku), things about Midorikai, things about herself. Each of the items was itself a beautiful thing arranged well with other things and it was a physical manifestation of the relationships in the room, of our shared endeavors and passions. I don't mean to suggest that we could crassly turn every physical object into a symbol, but to imbue all these items with the full richness of their own thingness is also to appreciate how they can materialize all kinds of things about us too.  Here I am in the world with all these things and all these people. We're all in it together.
 
This was how my day went. This day was a strange day, and if Jim ever inspired me to anything, it was to try to do my best by those around me, whatever that might be. And that's what people are trying to do in a tea room too. If I can inspire the same in any person once, then that's the best tribute to him I can think of.

I lost a friend

Half a world away

the sound of rain