Same, same, different

As much as we are all learning the same thing, and we all are attempting to follow the same rules and do tea, as Zeami required of Noh actors: "without any distinctive qualities" (right, one thing we should be doing when we're doing tea is fighting down the ego that is crying "look at me! Look at me! I'm so good at this! I'm special! I look pretty!)--as much as we are striving to be without distinctive qualities (or are we? Tea's uniformity also accentuates the little differences between us all that will always remain, when so much is the same, the differences of course stand out.)

Anyway. As much as we may or may not be striving for non-distinction, we all have little differences. Kohai are learning a lot about the different way all our sempai do things because we rotate jobs and work with a different one every four days [there are four set "toban" duties-- Chou (leader), Hi (fire), Hana-nishi (flower-records), and Cha (tea).] It's a funny thing, because we won't really learn how our dohai--the same level folks--do things differently because we'll almost never work together on a toban assignment.

There's lots of together. Tons of together. So I'm cultivating some small moments of apart, to stay sane. Not because I don't like people, but because I am discovering a balance of together and apart makes me better at being together.

My favorite way to get ready for the day and to wind down from the day has become walking to and from the dorm by myself. Now that we newbies have been here for a full month and more, we know the general gist of things--how to get around, when we need to be somewhere, etc--we no longer have to wait for someone more knowledgeable to escort us.

The quiet walk across the big busy street of Horikawa and then the turn through the little temple grounds, greeting the guards, bowing at the gate of Konnichian, and then greeting everyone along Ogawa dori, but mostly because it's early walking quietly and seeing no one has become a highlight of my day, especially on the way home where it's a relief not to be taking care of anyone else (all the rest of the day it's hospitality school, yknow?) and to be on my own after a big communal day and a likely evening group plan of meetings or practice or at least toban cleaning.

Walking through the temple grounds near sunset