My Year of Dirt and Water

by Tracy Franz

  Monday, December 20

  There are many calls today while I am in my office. First, Jisen-san, who, now back at the monastery, is pleased with the warm clothing and rose-infused head oil I left for her. And then Sensei, who dropped off some sort of mystery gift from Koun on my front step (I’ll see it when I get home). And finally Koun, who tells me that somebody delivered a truckload of daikon to Shogoji. “An entire truckload! We aren’t allowed to waste food so we’ve been putting it in everything. We’ve been making a game of it, to see what we can cook.” Also, on behalf of Aigo-san, he asks which of my mother’s breasts is afflicted. “It’s something to do with a prayer or special ceremony, I don’t know. Aigo-san is mysterious about his religion. It might be a Hindu thing.” And when I call my mother to ask, she tells me that, thanks to her siblings in Texas, the southern Baptists and Catholics are praying for her, too. And also, “the right one.”

  “Don’t you mean the wrong one?”

  “That, too.” My mother’s staccato, static-y laugh through the phone.

  After work, on the front stoop to my home, as promised, a stout box is waiting for me. Despite its somewhat small size, it contains a very, very heavy object. I carry it inside to the kitchen, set it on the seat of a chair, and open the flaps. A forest green te-rokuro—an iron wheel for hand-turning pots—is tucked inside. How had Koun known that I had been longing for one? I used a te-rokuro in Yamanashi a couple of years ago, with my first pottery teacher. He always got me mixed up with another of his foreign students, carving the katakana character ri (for “Linda”) into the bottom of each of my pots. I didn’t mind this misrecognition, actually—there was something freeing about not having to own any of those first attempts. Perfect or imperfect—they were all my egoless practice.

  Lifting the iron wheel from the box, I place it on the table alongside a big bag of clay. Next to the table rests the electric wheel that Sensei’s husband so carefully arranged for me. I’ve been navigating around these objects for nearly a month, seeing but not seeing.

  Wednesday, December 22

  The day before I leave for Alaska, Koun calls in the evening while I’m working clay in the kitchen. “Jisen-san is still not well—I’ve been driving her to the hospital and back.” His voice is exhausted, strained. How strange to know that he’s been traveling back and forth through town these past few days, along the road a few hundred feet from my door. “I can’t stop thinking about my mother—and yours. There is this teaching in the Catholic Church about how we get what we deserve. It’s ruthless. And the other version is just as terrible—we are brave and special if we have some terrible burden in our lives. I could never reconcile either of those views. My mother loves the Church, but I watched her endure all of those sermons and comments, on either spectrum, for so many years. We are not special. God does not give us gifts for good deeds or take them away for bad behavior. Everyone suffers. That is reality. Every single person suffers or will suffer deeply at some point in their lives. Recognizing this is cultivating compassion.”

  “You’ve been thinking about this a lot.”

  “Sorry, T. I’m writing speeches in my head. I have no one else to tell it to.”

  Cultivating compassion. That Buddhist turn of phrase. As if it were a seedling to be coaxed from earth and water.

  After we hang up, I survey the delicate clay bodies arranged on the kitchen table. Five tea cups formed on the electric wheel this evening—mostly of the same size. And now I’m trying to achieve the same effect with the te-rokoro, by first building coil pots and then hand-turning them to smooth away the imperfections. It is a slower process, a different process, and there is considerably less precision—I’d forgotten that. After my second coil pot, I give up. I don’t know what I’m doing, I think. And, Why does everything have to be so difficult?

  Thursday, December 23

  A day of travel delirium, and then somehow I am pulling my luggage off the conveyor in the Anchorage airport, stepping out of one reality into another. I move through a sea of holiday travelers toward the tall windows that frame the darkness of the Alaskan winter. The glass, at the touch of my fingertips, is cold as ice. My mother’s mastectomy—that cutting away of the rogue element—was some hours ago, in the morning. A woman’s breast. A mother’s breast. It is hard not to fixate on the metaphorical weight of this affliction. I hate that I cannot stop thinking about it.

  I turn and spot Thor’s big frame moving toward me, his hand held up in greeting. When we meet, he gives me a quick hug and takes my bag. “How’s Mom?” I ask.

  “I guess the surgery went all right.”

  “So she’s doing okay?”

  “They let her go home, but she’s moving pretty slow.” Driving through darkness, we don’t talk about my mother and what she’s going through—just about my travel, about Japan. Thor, still the on-again-off-again boyfriend, seems out of his element in this situation, whatever “this situation” is. It’s probably not quite what he signed up for. Then again, what do I know? I do not understand anyone’s relationship.

  When we arrive, my mother greets us at the door of her condo. Despite her sickly green aura and the agony in each movement, there is a genuine smile. “I have some good news,” she says. “There seem to be no lymph problems, so maybe no extended course of chemo. Maybe just radiation.”

  “That is good news,” I say. My mother has already explained to me the gifts and plunder of various cancer treatments.

  “Oh yes. I’m very lucky. Today is my Christmas.”

  Friday, December 24

  How light comes and goes so quickly here. A day, already fleeting, is even more so in an Alaskan winter. My mother moves cautiously around her condo to lift, carry, and place. A book, a mug of tea, a sketchpad. She takes her painkillers at the prescribed intervals, wincing as they begin to wear off at the bottom of each cycle. “Let me get that for you,” I offer again and again.

  “No, that’s okay.” Somehow—through it all—she maintains her sunny mood.

  In the early evening, we cook a simple meal of pasta and salad, which we share with Thor. Afterward, there is an exchange of gifts—an antique Blazo box and flowers hand-painted on recycled cardboard from Thor, packages of washi handmade paper and ukiyoe art cards and used-shop obi from me, home-sewn clothing items from my mother.

  After we consider each gift and then set it aside—forming a kind of still life in the center of my mother’s living room—Thor leaps up suddenly from the couch to examine an old wooden crate leaning against a book shelf, a relic taken from the cannery where he delivers his fisherman’s catch each summer. “What is this? It’s Japanese writing, right?”

  I lean in and examine the kanji. “Yes.”

  “What does it say?”

  “I’m no expert on kanji. But I’m pretty sure it’s ‘roe.’ Well, ‘child of fish’ and ‘goods,’ to be exact.”

  “I like that. Something about those characters. I could put that in the painting I’m working on now.”

  “Those kanji? Are you sure that’s what you want your painting to say?”

  “Why not? It’s the shape that I like. The aesthetic. That’s all that matters to an artist.”

  I wonder about the rawness of a wound when he says this, the depth of meaning there. I think about the eventual scar knotting against my mother’s wabi-sabi chest. I think about how I got it wrong earlier. It’s not a still life we’ve assembled here in the living room—it’s just life.

  Saturday, December 25

  Christmas morning. My mother and I rise late and then sip from steaming mugs of coffee while we consider our plans. Some days ago, my mother’s young neighbor invited her to attend Mass at her church on Christmas day. “She’s a singer,” my mother explains. “We’ve talked about it a few times, how she’s hoping to go professional eventually. I’d like to be supportive.”

  “Are you sure you’re ready to go out?” I look doubtfully at her. She’s still moving slowly.

  “I’m sure. I ju
st want to get back on my feet, back to living my life as usual. I think that’s the best thing.”

  “Okay. But—can we really just go to the church? We’re not Catholic.”

  “It must be okay. Maybe.” Just to be sure, mom calls her Catholic sister in Texas, who assures us that we’ll be welcome.

  A few hours later, we enter the church in a flood of people. Filing into the very last pew at the back of the room, we sit just as things get started. Excited children squirm and chatter adorably next to me. I can’t hear or see much of anything. And then the singing begins. A pure voice fills the space—completely fills it with expansive sound, and yet the distinct instances of commotion are there as well. Aural zazen?

  Afterward, I tell my mom about Lisa, from Seattle. “My friend—she recently converted to Catholicism. She told me it was ‘for the music.’ Now maybe I can understand why.”

  I email Tozen a brief message in the evening. “Merry Christmas! I’m in Alaska. I’ll see you at zazen tomorrow.” He emails me back almost immediately: “Bikkuri shimashita” (I was surprised) and “Have you shaved your head yet?”

  Sunday, December 26

  Early this morning, I step outside into darkness and the singular clarity of true Alaskan cold. In Japan, I find the comparably milder winter chill annoying and ever-present, not unlike the vague discomfort that is the constant second-guessing of self and language and cultural habit. However in Alaska, the cold offers up a different teaching: every winter trek outside of a well-heated space is a stark reminder of the possibility of death by the elements. No slow death of the ego and self-identity, this. It’s just . . . death.

  There is that familiar crunch of footsteps on ice and snow as I trek across the parking lot to my mother’s car. When I open the door, I find a small yellow sticky note on the steering wheel: “Unplug!” Right—of course I forgot. I move to the front of the car and oblige my mother’s command. Struggling with the stiff plastic of the electrical cable that provides warmth to the car’s engine block, I am reminded that even the nonliving can be killed by a night in this cold. I turn on the engine, begin to scrape the ice from the windshield—a full-bodied affair. Two cars down, another early riser is working on his own windshield, a gloved hand raised briefly in greeting.

  Arriving at the yoga studio, I enter into an outpost of safety from the elements. The zendo is already populated with people I met briefly on my previous visit—Jon, Annie, Susan, others whose names won’t come to mind until later, when I step back outside and fully wake up again. Tozen is here, too, sitting at his usual spot.

  After zazen and our final bow of greeting to each other, Annie, standing next to me, leans in for a hug. “Tracy, it is good to see you. What brings you to Alaska?”

  “My mother—she has a health issue. There was a surgery. I wanted to be here.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “I’m not sure. I think so.”

  “Good, good. You know, today in zazen, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it all. How life is so fleeting.”

  “Oh, I know,” says Susan, joining our conversation. “That tsunami. It’s quite a thing. It’s all they’re talking about on the radio this morning.”

  “What tsunami?” I ask, confused by this sudden shift.

  “A big one—in Indonesia. You didn’t know?”

  As I drive back to my mother’s condo, I gather bits of information from the radio. A huge earthquake early this morning in the Indian Ocean triggering tsunami throughout the region. Many unconfirmed deaths, and the confirmed deaths rising by the hour. I think of my neighbor Jennifer and her family, who are spending the winter holiday in Phuket, Thailand. I think of getting engaged to Koun on the same beach that was inundated by water some hours before now. I pull into Mom’s parking space. Sit in the heat of the car for a few brief minutes before stepping out into dangerous nature.

  Monday, December 27

  It snowed all night and continues this morning, the steady fall of white making for treacherous roads. It is really nothing more than a terrifying slide from one destination to the next. After zazen, the few others quickly disperse and Tozen suggests that he and I go for coffee near his apartment. I offer to drive. “The roads are very bad, and I’m not used to driving in snow anymore. Are you sure you trust me?”

  “Eventually we all die—one way or another.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a vote of confidence.”

  At the coffee shop, we mostly talk about my mother, about Koun. “Sometimes,” I say, “I think my truest desire is to simply know the outcome of things, some kind of guarantee that it will turn out one way or another. If I could just have that. Then, I could relax.”

  “There is no such guarantee.”

  “I know.”

  “Well, do you know the famous saying about death and taxes?”

  “Yes, I believe I do.”

  “There is your guarantee.”

  “I’m scared. I want my mom to be okay.”

  “That is normal.”

  As we are gathering our coats to leave, Tozen pulls something from his bag. “Oh, this is for you. It is a small thing. Happy Birthday.” Tozen hands me a card with cherry blossoms painted on the front. “I remember the day of your birthday because of Rohatsu and also because it is the day of my ex-wife’s birthday.”

  We step outside together, the snow continuing to fall from a blanket of gray sky. “Mo, yuki ga furimasu ne,” says Tozen.

  “Sakura ga furimasu ne,” I reply, holding up the gift card. Snowflakes—like cherry blossom petals—fall. Both are a transient beauty.

  In the evening, there is an email message from Jennifer. Their hotel was on high ground and they were not on the beach when the tsunami struck. “Others were not so lucky.” The death toll keeps rising dramatically—doubling, in fact—on the news. I can’t turn away from the images. So many lives erased by the weight of water.

  Tuesday, December 28

  My mother and I arrive too early to the doctor’s office. Both of us make small talk and pretend to read fashion magazines until her name is called. As she gets up and follows the nurse, I put down my magazine and stare at my hands. I don’t know what to do.

  At the bookstore afterward, we spend the afternoon looking through books on health, cancer, alternative medicines. “I want to consider everything,” says my mother. “I need to know my options.” The doctor cannot yet confirm what additional treatment will be recommended—this diagnosis will come later. “I’ll make the decision when it’s time.”

  After the bookstore, we park the car back at her condo, drop off the books, but continue our shopping in the downtown streets nearby. Perhaps for both of us there is a certain need for distraction today. We move from shop to shop, taking in the wares like tourists. We enter a tiny store that carries nothing but Baltic amber jewelry. A woman with a Russian accent explains it to us: “This has a very strong healing power—no amber is stronger than Baltic.”

  “A stone that heals? That seems unlikely.” I bend down to look at the bits of dark and light amber in her display case. They look, I think, like captured sunbeams.

  “Not a stone—resin from ancient trees.”

  “Of course. It’s very pretty. What is it supposed to heal?

  “It reduces pain and increases the healing speed of wounds.”

  My mother smiles, shrugs, and selects a bracelet and a pair of simple earrings from the sale rack. I choose ruby-colored drop earrings with silver beads.

  As we leave the shop with our tiny bags of overpriced jewelry, my mother says, “I think I like these because she told me why to like them.”

  Wednesday, December 29

  I am driving alone in my mother’s car on the way to pick up groceries. I am worried about her and feeling sorry for myself too—the two feelings a single weight. I am also inexplicably lost on streets that should be familiar to me. I’ve been driving fifteen or so disoriented minutes when I spot a building that I had imagined long since gone. I turn the car around
and pull into the parking lot. The structure before me is small, nondescript. Years of wear have stripped the paint. Still, the business appears to be in operation. Why have I not noticed this place before? Sometimes I think everything here is memory for me, stories waiting to be revealed and written and rewritten. I had just turned eighteen when I entered this box of a building to get my first and only tattoo. It took me just a few minutes to choose what I wanted. I knew it had to be that rose—thorny stem, blood-red blossom. I recognized the obvious cliché but didn’t care. I just wanted to mark what had already marked me. The artist—a woman with a shaved head, like a nun—asked, “Are you sure you want this one? That you want to do this?” There was something like worry in her eyes. The look of an older sister, or of a mother.

  “Will it hurt?”

  “Yes, it will hurt. But we can take small breaks, if you like. I have time.”

  “Okay. I’m ready.”

  The woman bent low over my ankle as she worked, as if forming the most delicate of clay vessels. That distilled concentration against my distilled pain. I saw tiny, bright blue forget-me-nots tracing along her collarbone, encircling her neck like a beautiful noose. Alaska’s official state flower. Wasurenagusa, in Japanese—“the grass of not forgetting.”

  Everything is memory. Everything.

  Friday, December 31

  New Year’s Eve, and it is another bitterly cold night. My mother and I struggle over a cork stuck fast in a bottle of red wine. Thor, big and strong and handsome, laughs at our womanly weakness, and then disappears into the bedroom briefly, returning with his most recent painting-in-progress: a beautiful classic blonde, head thrown back and hands spraying her slender neck sensually with a bottle of perfume. The kanji from a canning crate are painted neatly in a corner of the picture. Child of fish. Goods. Characters without a context—or with so much context that I can’t understand. My mother sucks in her breath and doesn’t say anything—and then, “Who was the model?”

  We leave a short while later, my mother’s silence against the sound of fireworks. Like sudden realization, they again and again illuminate the darkness.