by Tracy Franz
Saturday, January 15
In my email this morning I find a single thumbnail photo of bamboo heavy with snow, hanging low over an ice-covered pond—a tiny window into cold beauty. No text accompanies the photo. I recognize neither the sender nor the scene.
And then around noon, Koun calls. “Did you get the picture? It’s the frog pond behind the main building. It’s probably bad to use up the monastery’s data, but I had to show you.”
“It looks so different, so cold.
“It IS cold. But it’s beautiful, too. I wish I could show it all to you. Everything is snow and ice right now. We’re freezing and in awe at the same time.”
He also tells me that the monks are slated to go to Nagasaki, but the new snow has rendered the mountain impossible to drive.
“So you’re trapped up there?”
“Well, we thought so, but when we called to cancel we were told that others are expecting us.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’re trapped, but we’re not allowed to be trapped.”
“But how will you get there? You can’t drive that mountain—it’s bad enough in summer.”
“We’ll hike down the mountain and make our way to public transportation. It’ll take up most of our takuhatsu earnings to do it.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Well, it’s not ideal.”
“Tell me if you run out of food.”
“It will be okay. It always works out somehow.”
“Do you still have daikon?”
“We will have daikon forever.”
~
I bundle up against the cold and walk to the little movie rental store several blocks from my home. My student, Mizuho, shouts out a greeting as soon as I walk in the door. She seems very amused by my many layers. “Find a movie for me, Mizuho. I will watch anything you want me to watch.”
“First I must find you, Tracy-sensei.”
“What?”
“So many coats! Why? You are from Alaska.”
“Yes, but in Alaska at least it is warm inside our houses. Here, I can never get warm in this season.”
“I don’t understand you, Tracy-sensei. But, don’t worry. I will find you funny movie.”
“Why funny?”
“Laughing to make you warm!”
On the way home, a copy of Shaolin Soccer tucked tightly under my arm, my attention is drawn again and again to the absence of leaves in the trees. Bare, bone-like branches moving and creaking in the breeze.
Sunday, January 16
“I keep trying to see everyone as their child selves lately. A compassion practice that Koun told me about,” I tell Satomi as I spread okonomiyaki batter over the hot grill between us, forming a large savory pancake. We are tucked into a booth in a cozy mom-and-pop restaurant that caters primarily to high school kids and university students.
“What do you see when you see me?” asks Satomi.
I watch the door across from us. Any minute, young people will begin pouring in for the after-school rush. What if the child Satomi were one of them? A girl on the verge of adolescence. “I see pigtails.”
“Pigtails?”
“Definitely pigtails. And a blue-and-white uniform, the sailor design. Also, one of those mandatory bright red backpacks.”
“I hated pigtails. Too much trouble.”
“Maybe I’m not very good at this.”
Satomi reaches into her bag, produces a few scraps of lined notebook paper. “Let’s see. . . . When I was a child I often used to make origami.”
“Cranes?”
“Many things. I liked boxes—they are good for keeping small objects, very practical. But I don’t know if I remember how.” She creases an edge of the paper, tears it away to reveal a square, and then considers it briefly before beginning to fold. A few seconds later, a small paper box rests next to her cup of tea.
“Wow! How did you make that? It happened so quickly.”
“I’m not sure. I guess my hands remember, even though my mind does not.” I turn off the burner, and begin to dress our okonomiyaki with sweet, thick soy sauce, nori sprinkles, mayonnaise, hot mustard, and bonito flakes, while Satomi folds paper again. She produces two cranes, setting them gently in the box as I serve our meal.
“I get it,” I say. “Birds in a cage.”
“Well, an open cage. They can fly away. See?” She picks up the cranes, mimics them flitting off to distant lands, before setting them back in the box and pouring more tea for the both of us. “Oh, after this let’s get ice cream. Children like us love ice cream.”
“My inner child likes this idea very much.”
“My inner child also likes onsen.”
“Excellent plan—I know a place that has both.”
~
As we drive back from the onsen, we pass one of many well-tended Jizo near my townhouse. An elderly woman, a neighbor, bows low to the stone deity, that patron saint of women and lost children. In my rearview mirror I see that she stays in gassho for a long time. An old woman, a girl.
Wednesday, January 19
For my students, I am the bearer of good news after lunch—I carry a big box from Alaska into the classroom, set it down, and then stand back as the girls descend upon it. As they sort through gifts and letters from their pen pals, I open a large cardboard envelope that arrived at the same time, from Tozen. Inside, there is an illustrated children’s book with a cat on the cover. It is written in Japanese, and I work out “a million times lived cat,” before arriving at the better translation, The Cat Who Lived a Million Times. On a slip of stationery there is only this explanation: “I lost the English version. Maybe this can be your Japanese study.”
“Oh! That book!” says Naoko, taking notice of the pages turning in my hands.
“Is it a good book?”
“Yes, good book. I remember reading when I was child.”
“What is it about?
“Very proud white cat, very beautiful, loves himself very much. He lives and dies and lives and dies many times. But he meets black cat and makes baby cats. He loves black cat and babies more than himself. Then, he dies.”
“He dies happy?”
“No, very sad.”
“Um, is this a good story?”
“A very good story, Tracy-sensei.”
“Then I will do my best to read it.”
“Hope you enjoy.”
“Oh—Naoko, did you change your hair? Something is different. . .”
“Yes, black. We must return to natural color now. We will all have job interview soon, because we will graduate in February.” She sweeps her arm around the room. “Do you see?” For the first time I do indeed see that almost everyone has “new” hair—shiny black, neatly trimmed. The highlights and fun dye jobs erased and returned to a monochromatic “natural.” Somehow I had forgotten about this yearly ritual.
February. I’ve been waiting all year for this month to arrive, and now it is coming on too fast. “Oh Naoko, I am not ready for you to leave.”
“We will miss you too, Tracy-sensei. Always remember you.”
Thursday, January 20
Much of the day is spent editing stuff for Hiroe-sensei—seemingly mathematics-based linguistics papers that I understand only in terms of correct or incorrect grammar, and nothing more. “You are the only person who understands me,” he tells me—not for the first time.
“Hiroe-sensei, you do realize that I don’t understand the content of anything you write?”
“Yes, but I trust you. You are the only person I trust with my writing.”
As I step out of his office, a throng of passing students circle around me. “Tracy-sensei, look! Look!” One by one I examine the sheets of professional photos in their hands, all taken for Coming-of-Age Day, a celebration of the year in which a person turns twenty. Gorgeously adorned in bright traditional kimono, elaborately styled hair and makeup, the young women are barely recognizable. “You all look so—glamorous and adult!” The
y laugh, tumble back down the hallway, repeating, “Guramurasu . . . guramurasu . . . guramurasu.”
When I return home, there is a letter from Yamada-san. It begins with cartoon sketches of me and Koun. There is also a two-tiered snowman, a line of mountains. A smiling bear. If you move to Alaska, maybe I will visit you, he writes. I want to see white bear dancing under aurora.
Friday, January 21
This afternoon, a long talk with Bryan on the phone. “Kathy and I are struggling a lot lately. More than usual. Maybe it’s just all part of the process.”
“Does the end point of that process mean that you’ll be together?”
“Not necessarily. And the process never ends. Everything is process, an evolution. I’m a big believer in that.”
“Is this process a line or a circle or a spiral or something else?”
“I’m not sure. I just know that I should be moving through it.”
So, he tells me, he’s taking the Feng Shui approach—clearing out the clutter and moving his bedroom to the smaller room because, after all, he doesn’t want to be “spit off the continent” (the larger room is the “travel corner,” apparently).
“The smaller room—that was where Koun and I stayed when we lived with you, right? I’m pretty sure we got ‘spit off the continent.’ Maybe that’s why we returned to Japan. Mystery solved.”
“Good point. But I think you both knew you’d go back.”
“Well, would it be so bad for you? To just go to another place for a while?”
“There’s probably some value to that, definitely. Maybe I’ll take a week or two. I’m due for some vacation time.”
“No, what if you did something more dramatic? What if you moved to Japan? Or, you know, some other totally crazy foreign place?”
“Well, that would be interesting, to be sure.” Bryan, always diplomatic. “But I don’t think that will be the best route for me right now. Someday—who knows.”
“Sure, that’s a crazy thing to do. Just up and leave it all behind.”
“Well okay, maybe for some it’s the right move.”
“So how do you map out the different parts of your house?”
“Well, you start with the main door.”
“The main door to your downstairs apartment? Or the main door of the house itself? They’re opposites, right?”
“Oh, right.”
After we hang up, I imagine him returning to the plan he’s sketched out, tearing out the old and finding a new, clean sheet to map out a new and improved emotional geography.
Wednesday, January 26
Hiroe-sensei and I walk together across campus after classes—he on the way to his car, and I on my way home. “Oh, is this yours?” I say. The black sedan is usually parked here, in front of the gym, alongside my path to work each morning. “That long juzu hanging from the mirror always catches my eye.”
“I’m a very pious man, you know. I was ordained many years ago, by my father.”
“But—you are not a priest, are you?”
“Technically I am, but I chose the life of an academic instead.”
“Well, you seem happy with your choice.”
“I am happy, very happy. And I have good news. I am getting married in May.”
“Wonderful—congratulations.”
“I would have asked you,” he says. “But you are already married.”
“Well, at least we can still be friends.”
“Yes,” he says. “I would like that.” There is a certain sadness to his voice, and I almost laugh, but then think better of it. Have we, I wonder, been engaged in some kind of invisible romance?
Saturday, January 29
“How is your husband?” I ask Yoko-san as she maneuvers her big white car through the narrow streets of a neighborhood that I do not recognize.
“Not good, not good,” she replies. “But I can take care of him. I am still healthy and strong. . . .” Her voice trails off, and she waves toward our destination. “Oh! There is my friend! Shimamura-san.” A tiny, bent old woman—she must be well into her eighties—bows in greeting as we pull into the parking space in front of a house that looks like all the others.
“Welcome!” she says as we get out of the car and follow her into the ample entryway. Her way of speaking is tinged with age and dialect, and I can see that I’ll need to pay close attention to understand her. Inside, I remove my shoes and step up onto the main floor, carefully avoiding what looks to be a small quilt stretched across the wood.
“Oh, don’t worry—you can step on it,” says Shimamura-san.
I lean down to examine the intricate patterns. “But—it’s so beautiful.”
“Antique Japanese indigo cloth,” Yoko-san explains. “Shimamura-san makes them by hand from old samu-e clothing. It is her hobby. Look.” Yoko-san gestures around the room. Variations of the quilt adorn much of what I can see of her home. Years of work are represented in this dark and humble cloth.
“Oh—do you like Japanese quilts?” Before waiting for my reply, Shimamura-san disappears for a moment, and then reappears with two gorgeous quilts in her arms. She spreads both out on the floor. “Which do you like better?”
“They are both very lovely.” I lean down to admire the stitching on cloth made to be durable, to last a lifetime. “Gorgeous.”
“Then I will give you both.”
“What? No, no, I can’t. . . .” I look to Yoko-san, my hands in the air.
Yoko-san smiles at me as Shimamura-san beckons us both to sit at a low kotatsu. This too is covered with one of her lovely quilts. And then she disappears again, returning a moment later with a tray of Japanese sweets and tea.
“Ah, so you are an American. Tea is okay? You don’t want coffee instead? Or a chair? I can get you a chair.”
“No, no, I love green tea and kotatsu.”
“Oh, you do like many Japanese things! And pottery too, I hear. Have you ever tried on a kimono?”
“Never, but I have often admired them.”
“Come, come.” We set down our tea and rise to follow her into a spare tatami room with nothing more than a tokonoma alcove and seasonal scroll, a chest of drawers, and a tall and narrow mirror. Afternoon light filters through half-open paper shoji. A glimpse of winter garden beyond that.
“Saaahhh. A very traditional Japanese room,” says Yoko-san.
“Let me show you,” says Shimamura-san, kneeling and opening one of the low drawers. “This is where I store my kimono. It is not necessary to wear traditional clothing so much anymore. And some of these are for a younger woman, like you, Tracy-san.” She lifts one of the items from the drawer—a big slender square wrapped in thick, white paper—and places it on the tatami. She unfolds an edge of paper to reveal the bright, ornate silk beneath. “Ah, not this one. You are so fair. And this is furusode—it has the long sleeves of an unmarried woman.” She returns the kimono and lifts another from the drawer—a pale yellow silk robe. “This will suit your complexion, the pink in your cheeks. Do you want to try it on?”
“Oh yes—may I?” I remove my sweater—just the American uniform of T-shirt and jeans beneath—and the two women dress me, discussing the proper way to wear kimono.
When they finish, Shimamura-san points to the mirror. “Please,” she says, “it suits you very well.” I move to the mirror. The transformation is remarkable. Who am I now?
“I will give this kimono to you. Just a moment please.” She hastens out of the room.
“Yoko-san, I can’t accept all of this. The quilts and now the kimono—it’s too much.”
“No, she wants to give these things to you. She is very old. She will be happy if you take them. Very, very happy.” She smiles and moves across the room to the window overlooking the garden. “Oh—look!”
My body now bound in exquisite silk, I take small, delicate steps across tatami. In the garden outside, tiny yellow daffodils are in full bloom. The color of a kimono.
Sunday, January 30
A lonely day
made more so, perhaps, by the heaviness of a dream I cannot shake: me, skiing some moonlit Alaskan trail alone in winter. A stillness pervading everything as I slip between the dark specter of trees. This vista of a far-off place overlays the Kumamoto kitchen in which I work clay all day, and I am there as much as I am here. Cups and bowls form beneath my fingers and fold back into themselves to begin again and again and again.
When I settle into my bedding at night, I follow a memory down that rabbit hole of sleep. It must have been just after my fifteenth birthday. I was getting off the bus for ski practice at Kincaid Park as snowflakes fell. That day, though, I’d forgotten my ski boots. One of the older boys said he had, too. So we sat across from each other at a table in the lodge for that hour and a half of practice while the others skied the trails in failing winter light. It was warm inside, but still I wore a big striped sweater—frumpy, like a thick hockey jersey—and he commented on it, my tendency to hide my body. And when I didn’t respond, he leaned across the table and touched my hands, then my arms inside the sleeves of the sweater. I couldn’t bring myself to pull away. I felt that for the first time I had been seen. That somebody recognized the darkness I carried. There was both cruelty and compassion in this moment that would not end. Then he released me and pulled a sketchbook from his backpack. “Look,” he said, and I watched as he drew a timber wolf, starting from the line of the snout. I also loved to draw, but I had never seen anyone do so with such precision—nor from the center out. In this way, I saw him for the first time as well and that image seared into me: a boy in flow, a boy on the verge of becoming.
Strange, the memories we hold on to, that hold on to us.
Monday, January 31
A letter from Koun today. There’s something that comes up a lot in lectures here. ‘Zazen no toki ni zazen o ikasu.’ That is, ‘When you do zazen you just let zazen be whatever it is.’ ‘Ikasu’ in this case is active—an active ‘letting be.’
As I walk in the evening, I can’t seem to escape a deluge of thought. All those past encounters. All of those things I could have said or not said. Actions I could have taken or not taken. That burden of karma given to me. Finally, I stop at the edge of the overspill area and stop trying to escape. I scoop up a handful of stones and throw them into the water one by one, thoughts rising again and again and again. I think about Koun, what I wish I could say in this moment: There is a story I tell myself, that I have told myself for a few years now. About how I went to Lake Ezu and drowned my past there, all that misery unburdened. I wanted to be free of it so I could be with you. To live in nothing more than the story of our lives together. To be my very best self. But the truth is that it’s all there still, just hidden beneath the surface. It’s always been there. Maybe refusing memory is not the same as accepting and letting go.
