Adults

A few years ago, when I turned 32, I was struck with a realization-- in that way where when an idea hits you with physical force, it seems truer than the ones that wander through or the ones that you invite through rumination. The thing that struck me was that 32 was basically like being 16 again. I felt like I was surrounded still, maybe more than ever, with teen-like angst, with adolescent drama, even from faculty "adults" as old as my parents or aunts and uncles at least.  Even if 32 could barely be considered adult these days, they should surely surely be grown ups.
And so I became convinced that there is really no such thing as this mythical state we call "adulthood." We often treat adolescence and behaviors designated as such as somehow unreal--an act that people (even teenagers) need to snap out of: "Grow up," we say. "Act like an adult."
But I decided then that adulthood is the fantasy, the imaginary state we aspire to (or wish others would ascend to) while we all remain mired in the status quo reality of outsize feelings about petty drama and bratty selfishness.. just like teenagers. Even more so than teenagers, I sometimes think, because we have so much more power and we have accrued more and more relationships that we can mess with.

Some more time has passed. Any second I'll be in my "mid 30's." Maybe I already am. And so most of my friends are getting to this age, give or take 10 years, and my parents are getting older (seriously, "parent" always seemed like a static state to me, but now they talk about retirement and minor medical procedures and getting senior discounts on things. What's happening?!). Babies are raining down all over the place. And recently a number of really tragic things seem to be happening all over my facebook feed: my dear friend Jim died tragically young a year ago, another friend is fighting stage IV cancer, another friend's wife has been diagnosed in the last two weeks with "an aggressive brain tumor in an eloquent area of her brain." Other friends are losing their parents, dealing with divorces, or with chronic and life-ending illnesses amongst family members and friends.  It feels like the list of tragedies and life-shattering traumas is suddenly growing much more rapidly.

And I thought, is this what it is to be an adult? Is it to encounter tragedies and actually, unbelievably, shockingly, to come through it. Not to thrive, necessarily, but to realize that you survive, that you are at some level, okay. Is attaining adulthood not necessarily to attain some mythical level of level-headedness, rationality, and competence but instead to just be broken and broken and broken and realize that you can still get up and go on. And that when you don't go on, that's also, actually, okay.

It seems like a double edged sword to me, this ability to be okay. It could entail a certain kind of jadedness, a hardness that shuts out the hurt of others and oneself, even if only as a defense against it. I don't want to be that kind of adult. But it could also be something that seems to me about the most admirable thing I can think of, which is a sort of repaired and reparable fragility: One that acknowledges that we were built to spill, but that breaks can be repaired. Not a good as new kind of repair, but a kind of patched up, scarred perfection that acknowledges every knock, every disappointment, every tragedy and yet also acknowledges that we can go on. That imperceptibly, we end up basically okay. Is growing up realizing that actually, mostly, basically, it's going to be okay?

LOTUS FARMS 3.6 LAKHS PER ACRE

This is the headline of the spam email I got this morning.  It's the first one I sort of start to wish was true...and meanwhile this was hitting the Brown grad student listserv:

 

Date:    Tue, 22 Oct 2013 10:44:44 -0400
From:   ***** [Although I have to tell you-- the name "Pavlov" is involved!!]

 Subject: Are you sacrificing rats this week?

Good morning,

I would like to ask if anyone is planning to sacrifice rats this week, I would like to obtain the rat/s post-mortem. I would appreciate it, if you let me know or anyone who may do so. Thank you.





Kind regards,

******
Mathiowitz Lab

Chatsworth Road

There's just a couple days left in the shared flat here on Chatsworth Road, Hackney.  I've really enjoyed my time up here and it will feel like a distinct demotion in cool to move to Bow.  But I'm trying to cheer myself up with the prospect not only of my own lovely place to myself, much cleaner and cozier and better furnished, but also with the prospect of learning all about Bow and becoming a real Cockney, within the sound of Bow Bells. The whole Mysterious East of London has been a slow revelation for me-- since so much of history is written by the rich, my historical appreciation of London has (so far) largely been restricted to the center and west end of the city. Plus of course the disreputable Bankside of Shakespeare's day, which is still a haunt for people out for a good time, only it's pretty pricey, everything is dwarfed by huge office buildings, and it's a decidedly more elevated fun than in centuries past.

Anyway, now I'm an East Ender and I'm about to leave Hackney, but I've enjoyed Hackney.  I wanted to give you a tour of my London landing pad.  It is … a real London experience. There are three working addresses for this place:
1. 12a Chatsworth Rd, London, etc
2. Flat Above Shop, 12 Chatsworth Rd, London, etc
3. Above African Video Centre, 12 Chatsworth Rd, London, etc

I admit I have not taken nearly enough advantage of those second two addresses. Why oh why did I squander my 6 weeks here without once arranging for mail to be sent to Michelle Carriger, Above African Video Centre, 12 Chatsworth Road? Now there are only three days left and it's too late. Flat Above African Video Centre was on the market before I moved in, and has now been sold so the new owners will take possession sometime after the end of October when the last of the flatmates moves out.  So now is the time to give you a little tour of the first part of my East Enders odyssey:

 Here's where I've been living. Above AFRICAN VIDEO CENTRE. The windows with the red and white "Sold" real estate sign are the common room. My window faces the back. That's good, because it's quiet. You can also see at the corner of the building, from the side, the minicab sign. That sign flashes until late at night so that everytime I walk past the front windows in the dark I think there are cops out front or construction until I remember that it's the flashing light on the minicab sign.

So far so

I'm moving into my "real" flat on the 16th of October. Until then, I've managed to work out the deal where I stay in Hackney in the room of a friend of a friend. There's all kinds of wacky things about the place though-- not least that the flat was on the market and has apparently been sold, so sooner or later everyone was going to have to move out anyway. It works out great for me, because I got the last month, then I'm going to get to extend it by two weeks quite easily and then just disappear midmonth.

But then yesterday one of the other flatmates moved out... and unbeknownst to me, she owned the wireless and took it with her.  Which is really showing up my internet addiction. I just sort of stand around in one spot, swaying, not sure what to do with myself or my time. So this morning I went to the French bakery across the street, bought my free wireless (for the price of two coffees and a full English breakfast) and looked at my options (as well as the internet).

I have concluded that my best option is not to buy any internet until I get to my new place in almost 3 weeks. Which means a reduction in hours I can use it and no more surfing in bed, but may also spell a healthy detox period.  And I'm not really too disconnected anyway, since there are cafes with free wireless all over, and I now have the magic iBrick that will check my email and all, and there's internet on QM's campus.

So I'm going to spend some time doing offline stuff. Which (ironically?) also includes things like prepping a nice big blog update about the Hackney flat and other things that will also show up online eventually.

Isn't it funny how computers and the internet are now synonymous in our heads? Or at least in mind. SOmetimes it takes me a minute to separate out what is proper to a computer and what is proper to the internet only.  It's a Venn diagram type thing.

yeah.

LON

Well, it's day 5 or so, and I put a deposit down on a flat about an hour ago.  Now I'm killing a little time catching up on things in a very very cute coffee shop before going to introduce myself at Queen Mary for the first time. I suppose this means things are coming together. Fewer and fewer obstacles stand between myself and needing to get this syllabus finalized.  And it OUGHT to be fun to put together, but because it's also hard and new to me, it's been slow going.  I'm hoping to have an office and library access though by the end of the day, so that could help.

I've been walking walking walking all over east London.  Here's things that I've come across:

QM law school...

A few days later, the caption had been augmented.

awaiting the right wing anti-immigrant march in Whitechapel.

Waiting for the right-wingers by the Islamic Bank of Britain...

Pop up party at a dentist office.

Another beginning

It seems that I live in London now.

I arrived this morning about 7am, and I was through immigration and customs by 8. They put a big black regular stamp on my beautiful $815 embossed sticker visa.
Then my driver was 20 minutes late to pick me up. We wended our way all the way across London from west to east, through South Ken (my old stomping grounds!), through Pimlico, crawling along Cheyne Walk and Chelsea Embankment. The driver was very frustrated and kept turning down side streets to speed, then getting stuck in the scrum again. He does though know London exceptionally well I thought. Either that or we went to crazy places zigzagging over town and I didn't realize. But the fare was recalculated, so he didn't make any money on that. Then we passed the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, then Old Street. I saw the Book Arts Book Shop where I sold some copies of Birkensnake back in 2010.  Then we finally arrived in Clapton, and John was on the street corner and let me in to the place.  He'd also been cleaning it before I arrived, which is super sweet.  it's not a luxurious place.

I fell asleep for a little while-maybe two hours at the most- the only sleep I've had in about 30 hours. Then when I woke up around 2pm, I decided it was time to go out in the world and try to figure some things out.  I couldn't take a shower because even though I brilliantly decided to bring two towels, I stupidly packed them in the boxes that won't come for at least 2 weeks. Same with my duvet cover and pillowcases. SO although I have a bottom sheet, left for me at my short term place, and a pillow, I have nothing else and had to go buy it.  I also want a phone immediately, but the smart phone research was what put me to sleep in the first place, and I realized after I'd gone out that I needed to do some more research before I could just buy one. Honestly, all the figuring (and realizing how expensive it is) makes me want to just forget it. Please reassure me that smart phones are worth it in the end.

So, I decided just to dead reckon toward the nearest Three Mobile phone storefront which happens to be in an area I know, right next to where John works.  But I didn't go too straight, I just walked along looking for a decent lunch, a place to sell me water and an A to Z, a towel and a pillowcase.  I ended up zigzagging down south, then up across London Fields. As I was walking down a residential street with a tall apartment building on one side, I heard this sweet little girlish voice cry "hello!" and I looked around to see nothing until I looked up and saw a  little Black toddler wearing just a white diaper (nappy, I suppose) clutching the balcony bars above me who broke into a huge smile when I finally found him and waved to me.  I waved back and he seemed very happy.
I passed by what I think is an abandoned church.  It was sunny and got very warm today.
I would have been posting pictures of these things online, but I don't own a smart phone yet, so I can't.
I had a shrimp po'boy sandwich eventually after passing many cafes that seemed nice and cheap in their own ways, and that I realized I was just passing because I didn't really want to talk to anyone yet and walking was a way to avoid interaction.
I topped up my oyster card and rode the train back and then walked home from Homerton station.  I haven't met yet the other people who live here, but when anyone opens another door or other drafts happen, my door crackles a bit, shaking in its frame. I'm finding it hard to put down a novel that's getting to the conclusion and I just want to finish it so I can get on with things. I didn't even mean to bring it to the UK with me originally.
My room is quite empty, with a bed left behind for me in one corner next to a roof-view window (open), and my three suitcases laid open in another corner. I've started lining up my shoes along the remaining wall. I had that sandwich late, and I've only had two not-really-toasted crumpets and a yogurt for diner. I'll sleep by ten instead.
For about 10 minutes a man screamed and screamed out in the street. I can't see the street from my window, but eventually I thought I also heard a woman or girl's voice yelling, and then it stopped. There are lots of shops that cater to people who want to send money to various countries in Africa around.

Tomorrow I am formulating a plan that involves getting a phone and seeing apartments in Mile End. Maybe I'll stop into my new place of employment? Maybe something else will happen?

Providence-->Boston-->London

On my way to London!  Traveling heavy as usual.  It's hard to imagine what will happen next, but I'll try to keep you updated.

茶時 in the shadow of the paulownia

AT LONG LAST: AN ACCOUNT OF MY SHOGO CHAJI.


On Thursday June 27 I was the teishu of a shogo chaji at Toinseki, a full scale tea room complex built in 1929 at the base of the Hokokubyo, the location of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's grave site. Toinseki was designed by Ennosai but construction was carried out by Tantansai, funded by a group of tea enthusiasts called the Toinkai.

Shogo chaji is the "full" chaji with a meal, two charcoal layings, thick tea and thin tea, with one "intermission" in the middle called nakadachi-- "middle standing."  (Standing up is a big deal when you spend all the rest of that time kneeling! Plus it's bathroom break time.)

My guests were the seven ichi-a students and the kaiseki meal was planned and coordinated by Paivi with Sarah and Damian helping in the kitchen.  I was on the tea-and-service end of things with Sugitani - sensei, Hamana-sensei, and Midorikai-alumni and my friend from Boston, Cone, as the hanto.

>>> ABOUT TIME

Tortured/Natural, Feminine/Masculine

People who are talking to me about Tea without having any firsthand knowledge of it often say to me, "It's a geisha thing, right?" or "Oh, and it's only women who do it, right?" They say this like it is a cool feminist reclamation project to do tea, like crochet or baking or something. Which would be cool, but that's not really the case.  I do totally understand why Tea seems feminine-- it is on the surface of things a practice of hospitality and service, historically feminine undertakings. And today's practitioners are overwhelmingly female-- maybe 90% of people studying Tea today are women (although I feel like the ratios are more even amongst non-Japanese practitioners). And geisha DO do Tea; so did oiran and courtesans in the pleasure quarters of Japanese cities throughout the Edo period. So, to a western eye, of course "Tea ceremony" must seem very feminine.  However, today I was thinking that the things that I like most about Tea procedure are actually those which feel least feminine to me. The temae (procedures) of wabicha seem pretty clean, strong,  unflowery and unaffected in general--I was thinking today during keiko in Boston that all the directives are simple and to the point-- pick the thing up, hold it in a way that it will properly work as a tool. I know this means that in some ways I've just drunk the koolaid and become convinced that tea is "natural," despite the intense artificiality of laboriously memorizing movements in order to repeat them improvizationally. I also know, and want to emphasize, that I don't mean to elide the "feminine" with the "artificial" and the complicated while an unspoken "not feminine" (read: masculine) maintains its monopoly on the "natural" and "strong." However, I'm engaging such suspect binaries because I think they got here before I did and I hear within those well-meaning comments and questions about the femininity of Tea a presumption that Tea is delicate, complicated, ornate, fancy, pretty, and ultimately shallow.
My impression of Tea these days is that it is none of those things. In fact, the movements feel stripped down, bare, and efficient to me now (for the most part). And yet, I can still see what from another perspective seems like affectation and flamboyance. I suggest that this reveals just how much of "simplicity" or "naturalness" can get lost in translation between cultures. For example, translating Japanese into English often makes Japanese sound just as flowery and ornate as Tea might look: translating the honorific "o" as "honorable" is popular but makes Japanese sound ridiculously archaic and exaggeratedly formal with all their "honorable hand washing places" (bathrooms), "honorable tea caddies," "honorable waiting time," "honorable sweets, ""honorable beverages," and so on. But let me explain: that's just the way people talk. If everyone wore evening gowns every day, that would not actually be formal wear. It would be everyday clothing. That is what most keigo (formal speech) is like. It's polite. It can be a little laborious, and even Japanese people make mistakes, but it's not outlandishly weird the way it sounds in English.
So Tea isn't girly, it isn't stiltedly formal, it isn't outlandishly ornate, and yet it's clearly not simple to do either or learned quickly and finished.  Family friends from Kansas love to ask, "Haven't you LEARNED how to serve tea yet?"
The irony of this question isn't that it misses the point of why we study Tea; the irony is that no, we haven't. We all still make mistakes even on simple procedures we've been doing for years. We practice movements and steps, tripping all over ourselves, stopping, starting, and second-guessing actually in the hopes that eventually when we're not in practice mode, all those things will come back to us naturally, simply, flowingly. 
I often remember one day near the end of my time in Kyoto when I was sitting and watched another of my classmates trying to turn around in the tearoom and walk out always stepping and crossing with the correct foot.  I had a brief moment of irritation and thought to myself, oh who cares? Why do we have to trip all over ourselves like this all the time? It's stupid not to be able to just walk gracefully out of the room.
And then the reply to my frustration came to me just as quickly, just as if the teacher had answered me: we trip all over ourselves again and again like this in the hopes that someday all this practice will enable us to stand up, turn around, and walk out gracefully. After so much keiko, and in the face of the fact that we will never achieve a flawless temae, I had lost sight of the fact that the tripping and stop-starting was only a necessary obstacle in the path of doing Tea.
So we get into heavily regulated, you might even say tortured, positions and situations while practicing tea, but those are obstacles to be expected while we attempt to condition the body into being able to do these things gracefully without having to think it through. Just like anything we try the first time-- it goes awkwardly until we've trained our muscles to respond in the way we want. 
It's not simple to achieve such simplicity. But neither is Tea an overwrought performance of exaggerated everyday events. I like to think that Tea thus shows up the lie inside myths of the "natural" and the simple.  In fact, achieving clean simplicity of effect is slow, awkward, and complicated. It requires bodily discipline, repetition, and practice. We might wonder about that in conjunction with other things in our lives we think of as natural-- what kind of work went in to making that thing seem so "natural"?

Moving on

I'm back in Providence, the year is over, in the mysterious limbo between the end of my time in Kyoto and the beginning of a year as a visiting lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London.
I have about three weeks to get everything in order like renting out this apartment again, seeing everyone, getting visas and teaching materials in order and moving.

The time in between leaving Japan and arriving here around midnight last night was taken up with the ATHE theatre conference in Orlando.  Seeing all my colleagues from near and far there was great and also made me feel like I'd never been gone-- like Kyoto was a little bubble totally unrelated to the trajectory of my life in grad school and conferences.  More than once I almost said "Last year..." and then described an event from my last year in Providence-- not last year in Japan.  Midorikai (just as I suspected) has popped out of my linear timeline.

And yet getting back to Providence has been even more surreal than Orlando, Florida.  It's my apartment, only half emptied, and Brian is here, and some people are here and some aren't anymore.  The streets are familiar, but certain key things are different.  It's like dreaming-- everything seems familiar, but something is off about it all.

I looked forward to this little interval between big adventures as returning to something loved and familiar, but today it didn't feel like that at all-- it felt surreal.  I hadn't anticipated that.


Stay tuned for back dated posts from Japan, new adventures, and photos from Florida.

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern."

Annie Dillard


I graduated from Midorikai today. Sarah leaves tomorrow. Damian too for Tokyo with his family. Sometimes the schedule ends with a breathtaking suddenness and something else will happen instead.  It remains to be seen what that will be.

day off

We were about to have one, so, I dunno, let's just throw another shogo chaji.  Yeah.  For the teachers. Catch you on the flipside!

Also, there's one week of school left. Everything is insane.

more soon.

Time to make the chaji

Most of the chaji work happens well before the chaji. Like lots of practice cooking so that everything comes out right on the day itself:

Here's Paivi chopping corn while simultaneously eating a popsicle (You can see it in her left hand.)

This is Damian scowling because yakimono (roasting fish) is a very private affair.

The beginning of the endings

Today Hamana-sensei hosted all Midorikai plus Paivi's sister and a surprise returnee Linda for a farewell tea gathering for we who are returning home this month. It was a lovely morning affair with lots of tanabata related items (since it's tomorrow!).
For me there were some ups and downs, not just because parting is a very bittersweet occasion but because I discovered during the nakadachi (the break between laying charcoal and eating sweets and the tea making and drinking part) that I had angered one of the fellow guests with a silly joke that I had made just as we were walking to Hamana-sensei's house. I don't think it was a big deal over all, and I was hugely taken aback since the joke was one that I could never ever have imagined anyone to be offended by (and probably could never have been taken as serious within an American context) but here we are very international, we have misunderstandings, and (I think) we are also made hypersensitive by the kinds of training and the rules and culture of Urasenke gakuen. After I was shocked that anyone could possibly have misunderstood me, I was really sad that I was misunderstood and felt strange about going through the koicha (thick tea) there with the person I had inadvertently upset.
Koicha is shared from a single bowl and passed hand to hand amongst us all and it's considered the most serious part of a chaji/tea gathering. Some historians speculate that the form of koicha was inspired by the Christian Communion ritual in the way everyone is symbolically unified through sharing a bowl and drinking together.
So, this is a tricky thing when you're not feeling the unity after a small and unfortunate misunderstanding. More than that particular little snag, the juxtaposition of the misunderstanding and the spirit of koicha put me in mind of the challenge of finding unity amongst a group of people who, no matter how well they mean to be kind to each other, will make mistakes, will get tired or frustrated with each other, or will simply be unable to understand each other. And some people don't even seem to mean well at all--at least from one's own perspective, some people haven't seemed to want to be nice or understanding or to care at all, although of course I can't know how they felt. I'm sure people, probably the ones I'm right now suggesting didn't have good intentions, have thought the same of me. And of course, we've all failed to live up to our good intentions at times in this year.
So, thinking of the impossibility of understanding, the impossibility of maintaining flawlessly good relations amongst people, maybe especially stressed out people, maybe especially people from all over the world -- well those people seemed like the most important ones to me to share a bowl of koicha with and to try to be unified even without understanding each other. To care for each other and agree to be near each other and respect each other even when we can't understand. I haven't succeeded at thinking the best of every person I've shared tea with, but today I did that, and I wanted to try harder (or fail better) at doing that in the future.
All of which thoughts, in addition to the fact that this tea was about the fact that we are all departing soon to be scattered over the world, put me very close to tears in the tea room.
For awhile. And time passed, and things were really beautiful and chosen with care and skill, and there is this other interesting fact about the human psyche, or at least mine: you can also have two emotions inside at the same time, two or more concerns and attitudes.  I remember finding this truly astounding as a teenager, that you could be really sad and hung up on some thing, but then simultaneously have space in your brain and heart left over to find some joke funny, or to feel hungry, or whatever. Even now it remains kind of funny, or somehow faintly disturbing, how capacious one is for encompassing a wealth of emotions at the same time--mixed emotions-- how one feeling of sadness fades away and is replaced by laughter, or how they jostle each other right behind my eyes. How someone in a deep dark funk can light up for a momentary joke, then fade back away. I think our shared collective culture on personality hasn't necessarily done a good job cultivating appreciation for or understanding of the complicated multiplicity of how it actually feels to be a person.  I did consider just letting go and crying in the tea room. It would not be the first time someone had cried in one of Hamana sensei's farewell chaji, and it would have been understandable (although misunderstood, since people would think I was crying about leaving and not about the poignancy of the impossibility of human understanding... which might be kinda exactly right...). But I decided not to. And that is a strange sort of related thing-- to some extent we can just decide consciously how to embody our emotions. Not always of course, and not completely, but there are a few ways we regulate and consciously perform or not how we're feeling.

Anyway, the chaji was also about Hamana-sensei's generosity in hosting us, and his skill in bringing together absolutely lovely and fascinating objects; he sees two groups come and go every single year, and yet finds the energy and kindness to treat every one of us with so much consideration. I hope we offer enough support and consideration for him in return.

 

Toriawase notes:

In the machiai there was a scroll made from the new year's fan of a cow-year with Daisosho's writing of "Nanzan kotobuki" (Southern mountain, longevity) and an itomaki (silk spool), referencing the lovers of tanabata festival, a weaver princess and a cowherd man,

At temaeza, there was a Toyama gama by Miyazaki Kanchi (our favorite since we met him in Kanazawa in March) on a mentori doanburo with excellent haigata. The sumidogu included a Seifu (pure wind) kago, Tantansai konomi, with an eagle feather haboki--Linda said it looked like an American plains Indian basket with an eagle feather. The haiki was bright green. So was the sweet-- called "Ama no kawa" (the river of heaven) after the Milky Way where the two lovers can only meet once a year when they can cross the river by means of a magpie bridge. The sweet was from Toraya with little white sesame stars and a white an bridge/milky way. We managed to pull 13 okashi out of a poor overloaded 5 layer fuchidaka. 

The omojawan for koicha was a black Ohi Chozaemon (previous, 11th, generation), totally beautiful with long black drips creating texture all around the bowl like a draping curtain. There were two more koicha bowls, both pale and rough. The second one was hagi, served with a gold kobukusa with constellations and rabbits--Sarah has the same one in blue, perfect for tanabata. The third was Izumo yaki and he served it with the white agnus dei kobukusa Glenn sensei gave him.

In usucha, a whole bunch of fabulous bowls and delicious sweets from Kameya Iori came out--tanzaku shaped sembei and itomaki shaped rakugan on a glass plate that looked to me like the ita-warabi that we served in the aemono at Toinseki last week. The bowls were nanban sometsuke, really rough and faded blue and white-- completely awesome; a Thai bowl with a pattern of dots around the rim; a Japanese copy of a non-round Chinese sometsuke bowl that I drink from first; a kutsu-gata oval shaped bowl in ame-yu (like Ohi) made by a woman potter; a white bowl with blue-green washes of color around the base from Hawaii; and a tiny green Persian bowl with fish painted on it.

It was a good way to start a Saturday. It was kind of emotional, and not in a strictly expected way. Things have always been pretty emotional around here and it's only going to get more so in these last (it's so few I can't even say "few") weeks. And here's to trying to understand each other, to caring for each other even when we don't understand each other, and here's to many more gatherings to practice that in the future.

茶時

Chaji is coming.  It's in under two weeks now and all the things that a few days ago there was plenty of time to worry about later are now things that it's far too late not to have dealt with.

bit by bit, step by step.  Trying to get something done.  It's tricky.

I should probably start staying up later and sleeping less, but in my old age I always get very cranky about exercising that option.

hisashiburi

Oh hello.  I'm really busy. I sometimes think about the blog posts I will make and should make and then I don't make them because I'm busy.

But I'm thinking about them!

Here's a quick story from today: NHK came to film a segment on tea. It seems it's for the overseas market and they wanted to film foreigners doing tea, so we were all required to wear iromuji (one-color formal kimono) and hakama (fancy pants for men-- the thing that makes their kimono formal), and then we were scheduled to be in Ichi-no-ma at Gakuen, the most formal tearoom at the school with Yamamoto-gyotei-sensei (we have only had one other gyotei sensei--iemoto's highest-ranking deputies--lesson, and that was also for a special occasion). Kokusaibu said they would be providing the scroll and flowers and informed us that Paivi would do temae and Damian would be shoukyaku. I and one more student were supposed to be ready to give an interview also. This is the part that has been traumatic before, but I comforted myself knowing this time I really would be recorded and edited to not sound stupid.
Then the evening before we were informed that Yamamoto-sensei didn't want 11 people in the room, only 6 or 7, so almost half were rescheduled to regular class.  The four ichi-b's, plus our German, Mexican, and Brazilian ichi-a's were arranged in the room, but then only Damian and I ended up as guests while the others sat behind us. 

Then Paivi made simple tana usucha and Yamamoto sensei taught, which was pretty great to get some gyotei style tips, even when we had to be sweating bullets in front of cameras (and they wandered around and apologized when they wanted to cut through us and change their angles).  They stopped us before Paivi was even finished with the closing and then interviewed Yamamoto sensei with us all sitting in a silent row around the 8 mat room, and bowing in unison a closing aisatsu (Arigatou gozaimashita!)

So, basically, this film of keiko they got was nothing like a regular keiko day, so we're all joking that we came to school everyday in formalwear and we get taught by gyotei sensei all the time in the nicest rooms with the best dogu and iemoto scrolls hanging.  It's sort of hilarious.

During the ending filming of interview, they put me and the other interviewee first in the room, in case the cameras wanted to turn right to us and ask questions, so I spent that time getting progressively nervouser and nervouser.  Then they stopped and decided to interview us separately, and even better, they said the questions would be in Japanese but they wanted the answers in English. Woo!
So crisis averted and then I just wished we hadn't had two Americans being interviewed when we have Romania, Poland, Russia, Finland, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, and Germany to choose from too.  And then after the first question, the camera man stopped and was like, "Your face is sweaty" and I'm like, well, it's hot and humid isn't it? And he's like wanna wipe your face? so I did with my handkerchief.  And I hope I look okay on NHK.

Wacky.

Graduation Day

It's my graduation day.  I'm a PhD now although it all feels pretty distant from Muromachi era Japan.  I am patiently awaiting my virtual hooding via cyberspace.

Congratulations to all my fellow graduates -- I do wish I could have been there with you to saunter out the Van Wickle Gates, even though so many of us are already on to the next challenge.  Time is weird like that.

advanced pathologies of kimono

 This is the box of kimono stuff we all 7 girls ordered from the internets.


We have recently had a visitor who has the most severe case of schooner obi I have ever witnessed in my long career in kimono medicine.

And in other news, experts have recently detected one of the first few diseases of male kimono:

Subobi. This is the obi that is sliding down so far that one is worried it will fall right off. (from "Suberi obi-- sliding obi"

Marilyn.  This is when the wind blows the bottom half of the kimono so hard that it flies up and away like Marilyn Monroe's 7 Year Itch white dress. I'm afraid I witnessed a severe case of Marilyn a few weeks ago with one of our new students while we were carrying armloads of flowers and sweets to class in freak gale force winds.


Some additional diseases of kimono:

Slobi. This is the girl version of subobi.  It's when the layers of the obi try to slide apart, revealing the layers underneath the outer one.

Peekabage (pee-kuh-bah-gay)  When your obiage (the scarfy bit at the top) won't stay tucked and keeps peekaboo-ing up.

Osaka:  this is when your collar starts to gape open so you look like some louche Osaka lady instead of a buttoned up, straight laced Kyoto woman.

See this lady we met at the sumo in Osaka?  She has OSAKA.

Seasonal diseases:

Summer sausage leg. Sausage leg exacerbated by the hot summer weather and resulting sweat.

here's what happened when I tried to use google to get the best bus route across Kyoto.

Driving Directions here:

Alternate methods.

Don't try this at Midorikai

壬生狂言

Mibu Kyogen!

You know how it's kind of a trope that the prisoner who's been in jail for years and years and years is no longer really capable of living outside prison and kind of has a break down about becoming free or after being freed?

I think that might happen after Midorikai.

Not that it's like prison. Exactly.

hey ladies

We went to the Miyako Odori-- the most famous geisha event in Kyoto each April. It's in the Gion geisha district and it's the second geiko (the more usual term for geisha in Kyoto) and maiko dance I've seen. Last month we went to the Kitano odori, the dances put on by the Kamishichiken district, another of the most prestigious districts of the five hanamachi (geisha districts) in Kyoto. Kamishichiken is much less touristy and smaller than Gion and it's in our neighborhood up north, so I feel a new affinity for them over the more well known areas.

It goes like this:  You walk into a normal looking modern theatre. It's sort of a hybrid between a western proscenium, with the big patterned fire curtain, and then two side arms of runways (like hanamichi in Kabuki, only on each side) and long boxes with curtains behind the two hanamichi also. And that's because, when the show begins, the curtains rise on the two side sections and there's a line of musicians on each side:

How a chaji is made.

We did a lot over the break between the end of last term and the start of this one. And one of the things we did was throw together a chaji for the departing Midorikaisei and teachers. Although we lost our chance to have an official Midorikai farewell chaji at Chado Kaikan, with official supervision, it seemed that this unofficial one would give us a chance to practice all the preparation and running with the teachers.  Then we were informed that the teachers all planned to come as guests.  Which was both flattering and terrifying, because it meant that we were trusted to be able to do it, but left just the 4 of us to run an entire event with fire, koicha, usucha, and tenshin (a meal) for 6 sempai and teachers-- the first event for us to be the organizers instead of guests, and the only time we would make tea for the sempai. 

Although we'd been trying to organize it for several weeks, we only got a location and date and guests confirmed that they could actually come 2 days in advance, so the whole thing had to come together pretty insanely rapidly.

And it was nice, I think it went well. There were wacky last minute changes and much running around, but in general I think we pulled it off.

Diseases of Kimono

Last week, we all went to a weekend tea event and wore kimono for practice (since the new ichi-a's were about to start wearing it.) One of our new group who is very new to wearing kimono got up 3 hours early to start getting dressed, and even knocked on one of the sempai's (not my) door for help at something like 6am.  I was most definitely not awake at 6 am, and we had already arranged to meet at 7 for all who needed help getting dressed. So, when we did meet, this same person was getting help with the obi from Sarah, and I helped the other who didn't know how. But person A was quite worried about the kimono. When Sarah left her to get herself dressed with only a couple last things to tie up and another helper to do it, she kept getting my attention to help her mess with little details here and there. She looked fine, it was well put together, but she just couldn't stop fighting with a little point here or there and then suddenly, with just 10 minutes before we all needed to be walking out the door to catch the train, out of the corner of my eye with my hands full of person B's obi, I saw a movement--- an entire obi untied and falling to the ground, and I looked over to see A pulling everything apart and taking it off.  With my hands full I couldn't try to stop her but only wail "Nooooo!!! Don't do that! We have no time!" So it was a huge relief when another of the sempai came to the room a couple minutes later so I could wail "stop her!" but it was too late and she was already stripped back down to her juban-- the underkimono with what I later learned was 2 hours of the other two sempais' work dressing her on the ground in piles and 5 minutes to get it all put back together.

So needless to say that didn't go too well and we were late out the door and barely made it to the station in time to catch the train and I found it impossible not to be frustrated and sort of incredulous at the existence of a person who could think that was the thing to do at that moment (even respecting the fact that she may not fully have understood was the plan was.... I mean, I wrote a PhD on fashion and *I* don't think it's acceptable to be getting dressed for 2+ hours.) So, I didn't yell at anybody and I tried to be as kind as I could under the circumstances. And no one needed to explain that it was a foolish thing to do, as in the mad rush she ended up wrapping the kimono backwards (like only dead people are dressed) and the late departure meant we were all speed walking and rushing for the train-- so it was probably pretty clear to her in the end.  This also meant that we needed to do a hardcore kimono fix when we arrived in Nara.  We sent the others on ahead, and the three female sempai musketeers ushered A into the train station bathroom and stripped her down and put her back together at the changing table next to a line of ladies waiting to use the facilities who marveled at us, and one offered advice which we politely assented to and then gently ignored. 8 hands to hold things off the floor, 6 of which were also furiously wrapping and folding and tying put our duckling back together again in about 7 minutes. She didn't look as good as she had before she undid the morning's handiwork, but she wasn't dead anymore, so that was a great improvement.  And we went off to have a lovely day at Ochamori.

Okay, the reason I tell this story is not to embarrass A, but because her trouble with perfectionism has kindled my thinking on kimono. Because the thing is, kimono is not like other clothes. You retailor it to your body everyday. Okusama (the wife of the current iemoto/grand master) said to us just today, it's a mystery, but the same obi and kimono are never the same. That never happens with western clothes that you put them on and say, oh, today I'm not wearing it right.

We have jokes about the diseases of kimono, which I've taken great pleasure in naming: there's schooner obi-- that's when you have a creaky obi, so that when you move or even breathe, the obi makes a creaking noise, like the timbers of a great ship at sea. It's hilarious and annoying. Then there's sausage leg. That's when the folds of the kimono or underkimono (juban) wrap too far around your legs and get trapped when you kneel, so that instead of expanding a little when you settle onto the ground, they squeeze your legs together like you're a sausage in a casing.  Paivi has Sa-chan and Ta-chan, the right and left sides of the hashiori-- the fold in the kimono that shows below the obi. They're named after the Sakura and Tachibana trees that are traditionally planted to the right and left of the entrances of Imperial buildings. There are also slipping obi tails, flipping obi tails, granny collar, open collar, sliding obi, and any number of other "diseases of kimono" that happen everyday.

So the fact that person A was so concerned about little issues here and there that bothered her about the kimono left me sort of nonplussed. I've never had a single day that I think, ooh, nailed it. Kimono is utterly perfect today, every little fold and collar and knot is just right. Once I complained out loud that my obi tail kept wanted to flip up that day, and one of my sempai said, "you need more towels" (this is because some people with more curves that me wear towels to give themselves the more cylindrical shape that the kimono conforms to). I didn't reply but I think to myself, no, I need to stop moving and bending at the hip. That's the only thing that will stop my tail from flipping up.

Because that's why a kimono won't go on just perfectly and stay that way: because inside here I'm a real living human being. I have to move and bend and get things done. I have to use my strength to get around and my body to carry things and clean things and do things. The places where my kimono gets less than perfect are the places where I have used my power to accomplish something. They are proof of my living breathing ability to make change in the world. A doll could be put in a kimono and padded and towelled out to look quite perfect or I could hold perfectly still and probably not have to worry about a fold bubbling out, or a collar slipping, but where my kimono falls short of perfection is where I have accomplished something else using my strength.

At the end of the day, my collar has often settled into a position rather more open than it was in the morning; my sleeves are heavy with trash--tissues and kaishi and things. It annoys me when I see it, but I also see the end of a long day, I see a job accomplished and the strength of my body to do what I ask of it, and to transcend appearances.

well, this is boring

But true. I'm so tired I feel stunned, just leaning against the wall in my bed. I can't tell if the nagging disease I've always had of wishing I could do more and get more done and the pain I feel at having ideas and resolutions and not being capable of achieving it all has taken a turn for the worse, or whether it's just the presentness of that feeling is overwhelming me right now.
Damian's chaji yesterday, tons more things coming up. Unexpected visitors, emotions, working with and taking care of people. Craft projects! Planning. Job applications. A backlog of blog posts. Utter exhaustion.



I miss you.

Boston-Kyoto

Boston and Kyoto are sister cities.
This morning when I woke up in Kyoto, I opened the computer and the first thing I saw was this: 

"I dreamt this morning that I was in the Mapparium (a walk-through globe at the Christian Science Center that I visited with [me]) that's about six blocks from today's Marathon bombing. I don't know that I've ever dreamt of being in Boston before. Weird coincidence. Thoughts and well wishes to all affected."

So then, of course, affected by what? I rushed to find out; it didn't take long, of course.  Around 5am, after my phone's dying battery sound woke me up and I turned it off, unable to charge it because I'd loaned my charger, I myself had had a sort of anxiety dream in which I was in charge of organizing events for a group of about 11 people (hmm, what a weird coincidence: exactly what I started doing about 2 weeks ago) and I had arranged for us all to get in taxis and go to a park and then enjoy a nice drive.  I'm in one taxi and there's two others. In the taxis, just like when we're in any kind of group, we found ourselves idling, waiting for others to catch up and be ready to go, trying to get everyone organized on to the next thing.  And then, amidst the pleasure driving and the dawdling and waiting and trying to get people moving in a group--- I suddenly remember that we're in metered taxis and the German-uncle looking taxi driver is presiding in my vehicle over a 27,000 ish yen fare at the moment. I'm horrified and ashamed that me negligence in planning has caused this massive debt to accrue and am looking around at the irritated faces of the other three passengers. One was one of our new students, another looked like an academic I know from the States, and then the driver, and as if my brain decided to add another passenger after it had dreamed the car, there was another person suddenly in a passenger seat that somehow was positioned between the windshield and the driver. I was doing the math of how much we would each have to pay for this stupid error, and feeling the unspoken frustration with me as a leader... and then time passed and I was awake and realizing that I had only dreamed I'd been so stupid (thank goodness! I guess it was a money anxiety dream and a leadership/organization anxiety dream.)

But then it was Boston had been bombed.  The Marathon takes place on Monday--Glenn sensei's tea lessons also take place on Mondays, and every Marathon Monday for the last six years, I've walked from Back Bay station, mere feet from the bomb sites in the afternoon aftermath of the race to Glenn-sensei's tea room. That was a weird thought.  That's where I walk.  I've heard back from him-- everyone as far as we know is okay. The sirens stopped their practice -- it's so close by really.  It was totally surreal to see the pictures of the locations; they're familiar everyday sights to me. The Lenscrafters on Boylston is decimated. 

So, this was happening, so I decided that I could wait to leave until 8:05, giving myself 5 extra minutes of reading the news.  Then I jumped up and got in the elevator.  It was sumikiri today, so we were in samue, and I was carrying the supplies of gloves and masks for all 11 people, since it's the newbies' first sumikiri.  There were 3 people in the elevator when I got into it on the 3rd floor, including the kenkyuka student with whom I did the zenrei (pre-greeting) at the places that could be affected by our cutting charcoal all day. And then, about 12 centimeters away from the ground floor, CHUNK. The elevator stopped. We were stuck in the elevator. The one elevator we are supposed to use in all of Urasenke--everywhere else we take the stairs, but in the dorm, although I only live on the 3rd floor and I hate waiting for the elevator we have to do it because the stairs are locked from the outside and are emergency exit only from the inside.  Ironic.

So we're stuck in the elevator on our way to school. And we can see out the windows, where one of the new ichi-a's peeks toward us and sees me (and us) there helpless.  So while the other three girls press the alarm and the caretaker lady (Kanrin-san) comes running and another calls the emergency number printed in the elevator, I'm shouting to them-- "Go! Go to school! Tell them where I am!" Remember how my phone died at 5am? Can't call anyone to explain where I am. Stuck in the elevator with the bag of everyone's supplies and the clock counting down to chorei. But this is a pretty iron-clad excuse.  One tells the story of a graduate who got stuck in this elevator for 4 hours a few years ago. Great.  Eventually, Hattori-sensei, the sort of vice-principal of student life, comes and the first thing he does upon seeing us is laugh. We're like goldfish stuck in a bowl. He asks us what did we do? Did we all jump at the same time?  No, no, we did nothing, we touched nothing we insist.  There was the earthquake a couple days ago we reason, maybe something was jarred then. 

Time passes.
20 minutes.

The alarm continues to sound. We talk. One sits down. The others are apparently ushered down the stairs and out the emergency exit to school. And then finally, after about 20 minutes, the repairman comes and we cheer. He tries to open the door from the front, and only the outer one will open.  Then he disappears, and lands on the top of the elevator, and we all marvel, he's in the shaft! And from above he forces open the door halfway and I escape, then the others jump out, shouting with relief.  Hattori sensei waves us into the school minivan in which he had rushed over, and drives us straight up Ogawa dori, past Omotesenke, Kabutomon, and right up to the front doors of the school. "You'll go to chorei?" he asks, "Yes!" we say, and tumble out and up the stairs like a clattering horde, falling all over each other at the edge of the dressing room to fall out of our shoes, get white socks on, pull out a fan, and then stumble out to where the assembled rest of the school is waiting in seiza for us.  

And then there was the day to begin.


My deep sympathies to Boston and all the people affected by this tragedy.

Henshin

If I stop and think about it, it feels too crazy to imagine-- under two weeks ago, we were 8, the 8 I knew and a well-oiled tea machine, and now we are 11 and the 4 turned into 7 brand new ones and in the space of two days we morphed from underdogs to overlords.  Benevolent overlords, I hope. 

And what happened in that 48 hours where it was just us?  Or maybe it was only 36?  Mostly we cleaned I think. And then, how has it been a week already? 

People congratulate us: sempai ni narimashita!  You became sempai.
Yes, I say.  It's busy, this first week!, I say. 

A few of the new kohai have called me Michelle-sempai. 
And I say, no no.

Failure

I just remembered how great this song is!  And topical!

Kings of Convenience

一期一会

一期一会
いちご　いちえ

ichigo , ichie

one time, one meeting.

I think I've mentioned this one before-- this phrase is absurdly popular in Tea-- reminding us that each moment, each encounter is totally unique. Embrace and appreciate each one then and fully inhabit it. Etc etc.


The newly minted "sempai" (that is, us) ---erstwhile "ichi a's" who have just become "ichi b's" have decided that we shall be known as the "Ichi-go's" instead.  That way, we go from having been the Ichi-e's to being the ichi-go's.

Plus, ichigo is also strawberry in Japanese. So we have a ready made symbol too.

The first new kohai arrived today. A day early.  Six more to come in the next two days.  No rest till.... I actually don't know when there will be rest again.

Do not rush

Okay. So I've learned this so many times that's it feels like a joke. But a few new examples from the last few days have helped to get me to finally try to get this post out (it's been here as a draft for months at this point. I guess I could say at least I wasn't rushing on it... actually it's now been a couple more weeks, so the examples aren't that new, but keep accruing.)



There's a famous Tea/zen line that the Midorikaisei enjoy very much:

壷中日月長　(こちゅうじつげつながし)

Inside the tea jar, the days and months are long.


But much as we like the poetry of that statement, inside our tea jar, the days and months are exceedingly short. We are constantly having to accept the fact that we can't do all the things we want to. Even the serious study and practice things we want to do just can't be fit in the day (or the night). We have 10 hour days and then we are trying to shove all our studying and prepping and planning and relaxing and having lives outside the tea jar into a couple more hours and then trying to make sure we get enough sleep (actually, looking at the clock, I should be in bed. Awhile ago.)



Time is a big issue here. For one thing, everything is coordinated very delicately and we are expected to be everywhere 15 minutes early. Here is a true joke we tell each other: Ten minutes early is five minutes late. Although in Tea itself we are most concerned that timing be perfectly not-too-early and not-too-late, in Gakuen life, early is the only choice if you are the subordinate person. This means, as the students who believe ourselves the lowest ranked students (and the ones with the most to prove, due to our intractable and incurable foreignness), we are trying desperately to get everywhere before the teacher. Also, we aren't really supposed to leave before higher ranked people leave. That leaves the hilarious problem from time to time where we need to wait for a teacher to leave, then run like crazy people to be able to wait around for 15 minutes before the next authority figure arrives. We need to get all our preparations for classes and events done beforehand. We are in school from 8 to 5 and then eat dinner in the shokudo (dining hall) and then 1/2 to 3/4 of the time we have toban (rotating duties) for cleaning after that until about 7. So, a lot of time is already gone. And a lot of time is rushing to make sure everything is done.

And yet, we should not rush. You should never look like you're rushing in the tea room, and yet we often set a goal of completing a larger-than-easy-to-complete procedures per afternoon lesson. We want to make sure everyone gets to do a temae (procedure) and we want even to do two if possible. We rush. But we shouldn't rush, because when we rush is when mistakes happen.

Sometimes the mistakes are a natsume tipping and tea getting everywhere. Sometimes the mistakes are forgetting to put on your fukusa or prepare the sweets because you feel rushed to get started. Sometimes they are just getting corrected by the teacher on style points because of course I was concerned with feeling like I was late instead of bowing as elegantly as possible and fully inhabiting the moment. That is, huh, it seems like rushing, as much as it's clearly *about time* is actually about being OUT of time. Both lacking the time we believe we needed and must do without AND being in syncopation with what's going on.

Timing might be the koan of the entirety of Midorikai. Well, one of them. Chaji are about timing-- about how to time everything not too early and not too late that guests get hot food and see wet stones instead of drying ones, so that fires are hot and sweets are moist, and we get done fast enough that we can still use our feet, but not so fast that we feel pushed back out the doors. 

Not rushing here is about realizing that we can do it all, we can't get everywhere or do everything and that some doing nothing is actually necessary to staying alive and sane, and then it's learning to be graceful about that bitter realization. Not rushing is about somehow miraculously figuring out how to get done what must must be done, and realizing which things were not so necessary after all.

Someone told me that not rushing isn't about how much time you don't have but how you use the time--that not rushing doesn't mean not moving fast, but lies in having a calm attitude toward what's going on.  Since I can't figure out a way to have more hours or fewer things to do, I'm supposing it's my only choice right now: trying to move fast but without losing my concentration on the thing at hand.

It's already more than halfway over. Two of the three terms are over. The new ichi-a's are coming beginning on April 3. We have been saying goodbye to the old ichi-b's.  We have had event after event. There hasn't been an unscheduled day yet this whole "break." A bare fraction of the things, both studious and leisurely, that I've wanted to do have gotten done. I have lost time dreaming of the things I imagined I would have time to do and will not.  And yet what we do--each of the tiny fraction of things we WILL get to do-- these are pretty great. And now I'm just looking for a little more time to document them, to tell you about them, to digest them, and to do a few more.

Spring break

Whew. Hi everybody.  We've just passed graduation day. Not mine, but the ichi-b's, and so supposedly from now, I and my group have become "sempai."  Our new compatriots will be showing up in two weeks-- there are seven of them (!)-- so that will be wild.
And meanwhile, we have three weeks of "vacation" that are already completely stuffed full of things we plan to do. Events, museums, things to get to prepare for the final, breakneck term of chaji madness. And of course an endless backlog of blogging that I dream about doing all day, and then can't find the energy to sit and actually write at night.

Stay tuned. And hi.

Baikasai

Dude!  Did you know I went to Baikasai which is an awesome tea event (and flea market) put on at Kitano Tenmangu to commemorate Michizane Fujiwara, a patron of scholarship, by the geiko and maiko of Kamishichiken?

Pretty insane.

Their style is amazing, and not just the outfits. Look at this insane outdoor kettle set up. I want!

Free time

So, I came home from classes today after being cho, who (as chief in the mizuya during class, a big responsibility, officially doesn't have any other toban duties for the evening.) And although there was more cleaning to do because we were taking over Mike and Olya's nights since they are hosting the chaji tomorrow, at the last second Sarah told me not to go and that she would cover it all. So I was faced with the prospect of my first evening without having to or planning to go out someplace else after 6 for possibly the first time this semester (and the semester ends next week).  I kinda had a freak out actually, not having someplace to be. I told myself about all the work I should do, and would do and everything neglected I would get done in my house. And then I settled in to relax a little bit first.

And then I got the call to come to the impromptu Oosoji (big cleaning) at boys dorm, in the rooms we use for storing our utensils and cooking and practicing and hanging out.  No one had really known about it, but suddenly we were cleaning the whole floor, especially all the empty rooms and bathrooms that haven't been touched for years and were slowly growing mold and the broken washing machine that apparently no one had even looked to see that it was full of standing water slowly molding and turning rust colored from the washing machine innards it was corroding.

So that's what happens when I have a free night.  I don't.

Chaji -- Koharu 小春

February 21, 2013
Toinseki, a tea house complex built in the 20th century on the site of Hideyoshi's grave in the southeast part of Kyoto. (It may be rather unseemly to have tea on the grounds of Hideyoshi's grave-- a little like tribute, a little like dancing on it. Every way, it's a bit wrong.

Shogo chaji.

Neil Gaiman agrees:

Neil Gaiman agrees with me about the failing thing!

 "Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes."

ring the bells that still can ring
forget your perfect offering
there is a crack in everything
that's how the light gets in

~leonard cohen

Remember in the summer when we were sooooo hot that we were sneaking out our fans all the time to try to stop from melting? 

Me either, but I just found my fan, so it must not have been a dream.

Life Size

Konnichian is the home of the Ura-sen-ke (the back door Sen family), the leaders of the largest tradition of Tea in the world. There is an irony, because the "ura" or "back" part of their description comes from the fact that this lineage is descended from Sotan's youngest son, not the elder two who also founded tea dynasties. So, we're kind of the upstart, smartaleck kid brother who goes on to become the heavy hitter in the family business. Anyway, the point is, Urasenke is the big fish in the tiny pond of Japanese tea and a big business to boot. And the iemoto (head of house/"hereditary grand master") system means that there is real hero worship of the Sen family. They are tea royalty. And kind of real royalty, because the current okusama (wife of the grand master) is an actual imperial line princess type. They are a big deal.

We had a multi-part lecture series on the architecture and tea rooms and gardens of Konnichian. The house--I feel I should call it a villa or a manor or something-- is so important and so synonymous with the Sen family that their actual nonprofit is CALLED Konnichian. You can even refer to the members of the family as Konnichian, as in "Konnichian has scheduled the event for this day."

But here's what's crazy about this vaunted estate: it's tiny. All these rooms that we've had lecture after lecture describing with exhaustive descriptions of the wooden beams, the paper screens and doors, the stones in the garden--- it's really small!  The big entrance hall, that famously has a removable pillar so fancy people could be carried right inside in their palanquins, it's maybe 12 feet across, and 10 feet deep. The rooms have low ceilings, narrow hallways--we're talking more hobbit hole than Rockefeller. This is one of the most important cultural landmark homes in Japan!

However, this is not a sign of poverty: in the wabi-sabi tea world, the small is highly valued. In fact, the name "Konnichian" actually is the name of the smallest room in the entire complex: Sotan's under-two-mat-sized tea room--under 2 meters by 2 meters in area, with a sloping roof that makes it impossible to stand up straight in some areas of the room. Apparently in tea society, people had a habit of calling each other's houses, and even each other, by the names of their smallest tea spaces (which were the wabi-est and, paradoxically then, the most culturally refined.)  [Sidenote: the reason why Konnichian is called Konnichian--literally today hut-- is because of an apocryphal story wherein Sotan invited his Zen teacher Seigan Soi to tea at his brand new tea room, then Seigan was late. Finally, Sotan gave up waiting and went out, leaving a message that Seigan should come tomorrow. When Sotan got home again, there was a scrawled message from Seigan: "A lazy monk knows nothing of tomorrow." I love this story. It requires a whole other post. It's time and time again.]

Okay, so Konnichian is the smallest room in a complex of small rooms. Even the big rooms are small compared to even my middle-class family home in Kansas-- the biggest room at Konnichian is probably about the size of our living room, although you can open up the spaces by removing the sliding fusuma doors to make a big open space that's much larger. And this I totally love. It feels very small and human sized. Tea architecture is clearly not meant to overwhelm a person with a sense of her smallness like a big medieval cathedral or a Victorian monumental public space, like libraries or government buildings. Instead, the person seems quite big in these spaces.

The classic entrance to the standard size (4 and a half mat) tea room is the nijiriguchi--the crawling entrance.  It's a little square door that you have to squeeze yourself through to get in. This definitely helps give you the Alice in Wonderland feeling of being quite large.









A few years ago, I saw a Japanese architect, Fujimori Terunobu, give a lecture on some of his tea house designs. He's a contemporary architect who hasn't ever really studied tea, but made some amazing teahouses, like this one for himself called Takasugi-an (too tall tea house):

In his lecture (which was part of a conference celebrating the opening of a tea utensil exhibition at Yale University in 2009) he spoke about how Japanese architecture is based around the tatami mat, and how tatami is approximately human scale.  One tatami: 191 cm by about 95 cm fits most adult people lying down pretty well. And one half of that fits a sitting person pretty well. Here's a shot of his drawing explaining this:

Here's proof of the human-sizeness of tatami:

This is me and Damian warming up the tatami before a weekend practice.

And he went on to talk about the ro sunken hearth in tea rooms as like a heart in a person, a warm center roughly in the middle of the 4.5 mat room. (That's there in the bottom right.)
Here's a picture of Tai-an, Rikyu's two mat space that Fujimori has drawn in the lower right, just before the person lying in a two mat space.)

As an unabashed humanist, meaning a person who is really into thinking about and considering the lot of humans, I am into this idea of architecture and thus, I also really love Konnichian and its tiny spaces, punctuated all winter long with little glowing hearths here and there:

Here is a clandestine shot of people waiting to go into the tea room at Hatsugama. This is one of the bigger rooms, but it feels very cozy. Of course, extra cozy because lots of people are stuffed in.


Anyway, the thing I've been trying to get at is simply, isn't it nice to build a space around a person in a way that has the effect of making the person central and that feels tailored to people and making people feel like they are the point?  I also enjoy being humbled sometimes by the vast and lofty, but I think there's a distinct value to some spaces which, no matter their lofty reputation, like Konnichian's, turn out to be humbly proportioned toward people, just people, for doing an everyday thing like making tea for each other.  This series of thoughts segues with my thinking on comfort, but that will have to wait for another post.