Grace

In the last five years my wife Charlotte and I have spent a month traveling in Japan. Throughout our wandering its people treated us, two naive Americans, with patience and good cheer, and in the process revealed their genuine character. Here are a few observations.

- In Tokyo where density is a cliché, we saw the well-tended trees and understood the people’s true spirit.

- On the island of Miyajima where the luminescent red torii stands in the Inland Sea acclaiming the natural splendor of Mt. Misen, we watched tourist walk out during low tide to touch the red gate and leave coins as talismans.

- Unexpectedly entering a city of gleeful, energetic people a short walk from the profound sadness of Hiroshima’s Peace Dome.

- With distant snow covered peaks in the background we sampled Takayama’s traditional sake and miso amidst its ever-present watercourses.

- Nikko’s cascading rivers and mountain mist that define the onsen experience, and the pride that the inhabitant take in the surrounding beauty and natural bounty.

- The Kenrokuen garden of Kanazawa where brightly uniformed attendants in conical bamboo hats use such care in sweeping the centuries old moss clean of fallen burgundy and golden leaves.

- Ancient Mt. Koya’s deep quiet in amongst the graves and massive cedars where families come to honor their departed.

- And sophisticated Kyoto, devoted to the preservation of Japan’s finest traditions. It is nestled in its mountain home much like Florence is in the Tuscan hills where my ancestors lived.

- Finally then to Konnichian, Urasenke’s garden of teahouses that represent the birthplace of chado, the way of tea. Where over four hundred years ago Rikyu and Sotan laid the foundation for the practice we follow today. And where the present 15th and 16th generation grand tea masters extended us a warm welcome and a willingness to pass on chado’s knowledge.

Of course each memory could be expanded on, but to what end. Basho’s brevity better serves to describe the experience. As we traveled we found ourselves planning for the next visit. Alas, we could spend 10,000 years and not see all that Tokyo has to offer, let alone the rest of Japan.

Japan is technology, infrastructure, design, and intellect. It is outrageously garish and incredibly subtle. It is exotic and down home comforting. It is regal in a Victorian way and unsettlingly modern. It is all these simultaneously. No better example of this than the Shinkansen.

I tried to photograph the scenery flashing by my window at 200 MPH. The attempt made my brain hurt and my body longed for its next warm soak. It took me too long to realize that photography was not the answer. I finally turned the video recorder on and let it run, hoping that once home slow motion will provide a sense of the fleeting images.

I write this 6000 miles further east then I was two days ago. My body is longing for a dinner of soba or udon or tempura, for a good beer and miso soup, and for the delicate pickles and rice that end each meal. It will take a few more long nights to get back to normal. But what will that be, now that we have experienced this other world.

We will remember Japan for its sweet, sincere people who treated us with such grace. And for the way their faces lit up when we announced we were from Chicago, and how they told us that they were coming—to see the Cubs of course!

Volume 5836 (14), 1/1/2011

Points

Bullet Points from Tokyo.
Observations from the village of Shinjuku:

• Chimes

• Squeaky voices warning of every danger

• Good Beer

• Japanese Wine, but not on the menu

• Sweets! Packaging!

• Pace—Fast

• Crowds & No Crowds

• Clean

• Bonsai-ed Trees

• Cute interactions

• Hawkers

• Where are all the young men?

• Black and grey with sprinkles of eccentric colors

• Walkable village within an enormity

• Officer Friendly

• Incomprehensible addresses

• Small door/Large room

• Fluorescent colors

• More Chimes!!!

• Land of Crows (Crows own the sky)

• Slaves to fashion

• Bunions

• Blue Christmas

• Hidden Fuji-san

• Density as a cliché

• Forests of skyscrapers

• Lovely department stores

• Small scale/Large scale

• Yes, sardines in a can

• And then Shikansen and gone…..

November, 2010

Eggplant

I do not relish eggplant. Of course I loved my mothers. She thinly sliced and coated it with egg, breadcrumbs, cheese and spices, and then fried it in olive oil. It was wonderful. But this has not been my experience with the eggplant of friends, relatives and restaurants: it is too thick, it is sopping with oil, and it is under or overcooked. Commonly it exists, like subatomic particles, in both states at the same time. I keep my distance.

That is until this year. Spring started out with a bang. April was already hot. Unlike the summer of 2009, which consisted of two warm weeks this year we had only two cool weeks all summer. The garden was premature. A month prior to Labor Day it had already yielded up a freezer full of pesto and tomato sauce and something new – eggplant.

Nature and the Japanese eggplant that my wife Charlotte planted in our backyard forced my hand. I needed to cook it because my 94-year-old mother no longer could. My past attempts had been failures. I just never knew how to start, but start I did for it is hard to ignore the fruits of three prodigious plants.

Several years ago I found a reasonably priced French copper saucier at a discount store. I bought it despite not knowing its purpose. This pretty copper pot sat taking up space on top of my stove with nothing to do. Then, when I brought the first batch of eggplant into the kitchen I knew it was the correct vessel.

Instinctively I moved the pan to the largest burner, turned the heat on low and poured in some of Alberto Passigli’s olive oil (another story). I added finely chopped Vidalia onions and a little salt. With the lid on I puzzled about what to do with the eggplant. I needed to make quick work of this, so I divided the banana-sized eggplants into four quarters and then cut half-inch thick wedges.

I know the prevailing wisdom is to salt eggplant to remove the bitterness, but being restless due to the shot of espresso I had just treated myself to, in it went on top of the onions. I did not mix the eggplant with the sautéing onions just yet. A little more salt and oil on top, and on with the lid to let the mixture steam. Next came carrots and garlic, and when the onions were caramelized I mixed it all up with fresh basil, ground pepper and a few dollops of Tabasco sauce.

All this chopping over an open flame worked up a thirst, so I had a glass of last nights wine and for good measure poured some into the pot. As I lifted the lid the smell of my labors became evident, the way only Italian cooking can.

Now I was confronted with one of those judgment calls that mark the difference between art and science: how long should I cook the eggplant. Fresh eggplant has a creamy color and a spongy feel not unlike the foam found inside of seat cushions. Once cooked, the flesh takes on a greenish-grey translucent quality. Having been the recipient of many a semi raw eggplant, I knew it would be a mistake to under cook it.

When it seemed almost cooked, I added a can of diced tomatoes, San Marzano’s I think. I could have used skinless fresh tomatoes or stewed or any other type. I decided not to sweat the details, remembering the whole point of this exercise was to cook the eggplant, and it was getting close to 5:30, the time Charlotte arrives home from work. So on went a pot of water for the pasta.

I had ten minutes to reflect as the penne cooked. I learned to be grateful for the memory of my mother’s cooking and the legacy she instilled in me. I learned to sauté the eggplant in oil first and not water. I learned that in 30 minutes it is possible to make a passable meal from ingredients out of a bungalow’s backyard garden. And as a bonus I had enough left over after dinner to freeze, so in February, 2010’s garden can be enjoyed all over again. What could be better than that!

P.S. Alberto’s olive oil is available at: http://www.zingermans.com/product.aspx?productid=o-pod.

Volume 5828 (4), 10/22/2010

Thump

Brilliant sunlight transforms into brilliant darkness. Looking south from Montrose harbor the blackness over the lake acts as a backdrop for the pure pigments of fireworks, which appear just to the left of a skyline dominated by the spires of three great spikes driven into the sky.

Outside my pilothouse window on this clear August night, the downtown buildings glimmer like stars and not with the steady light of planets. That is except for a horizontal strip of light on one black angular building. Tonight its light is white, but depending on the holiday, the charity or the triumph of our city’s sports teams the light becomes combinations of pink, orange, green, red, white or blue—all the colors of the rainbow.

Luminescent sodium vapors hit the water directly before me in cogent beams that fan out to meet my gaze. They are then dispersed by wavelets of a southerly breeze. The light is at rest, but somehow it floats northward in glimmering arcs of salmon colored light.

Along with light there is also noise. Boats interact with the water and wind: slap-slap, plop-plop, clang-clang and thump-thump. An ice cream vendor’s repetitive jingle, and the truncated voices of other boaters are carried across the water on warm humid air and add to the atmosphere. There is the steady drone, like white noise, of tires and displaced air from the cars on LSD with an occasional wail of two-wheeled mayhem.

Spiders come out at twilight to prepare their webs for a night of gruesome feasting. I take in the flag and secure the yacht club’s burgee. If the wind picks up in the night this insignificant piece of cloth will rattle the boat and wake an already wakeful skipper. This is not battening down the hatches. It is August and still calm, so I can afford to be a little laidback; soon enough the nor’easters will begin and require another level of preparedness.

But let us not go there yet. Let us bask in the banality of summer. It has taken three months to get to this point and soon summer will mature into fall.

The moon has risen as I write this. Initially I see it interspersed amongst the sailboat’s masts at the east end of the harbor. Its pale reflection plays on the water and as the waning gibbous climbs above the horizon it changes from orange to yellow and finally, into white.

I often study the moon’s surface. Sometimes with eyes alone, and other times with the help of binoculars and telescopes. I am familiar with the shadows cast by its mountains and craters. The moon is a study in grey except when it is full, and then it is the reflected glory of the sun.

As my little wind-blown ship wanders on it’s mooring, the now risen moon once again beams its light straight into the boat and into my soul. I turn off the overhead light and bathe in the moon’s splendor. It is a privilege to be in the middle of a great city and be directly connected to nature. The waters of Lake Michigan allow for this. Without it I would be marooned.

This has happened to me in the past. I spent years inland in study with no recourse to water. I would dream while reading of sea voyages great and small. Trying in vain to reconcile my conflicting goals, wishes and desires. I envied those I read about. They did what they wanted despite, or maybe because of, the consequences.

Now at this stage of my life I am determined to stay tied to the watery world. Here in the harbor with land’s worries just a short row away, I decide they can wait till tomorrow. Tonight I bask in the lake’s breeze and if it holds steady, I will spend the night without dreams, all the while being in one.

Volume 5823 (4), 9/17/2010

Obfusgate

The world seems an increasingly confused place. Maybe confused is not the correct word. Complicated sounds good but it is a little too simplistic. Obfuscate, a word that threatens to obscure my whole point, seems most appropriate for the meaning I am trying to convey, but where did a word like that come from? It is certainly not a word I commonly use.

In 1973 I was a 19 y/o college dropout wandering the Middle East and Europe. My short experience in college made me realize I was not prepared for higher education. I decided to learn how to read and write; skills I had managed, despite a mainly Catholic education, to almost completely by-pass. To that end I started to keep a journal and made a point to read anything I could get in my hands. Not always an easy task in Israel, Greece and Norway.

Despite the content, I read, paid attention to the grammar, and looked up every word I did not know the meaning of. It made for hard going, I had a lot of catching up to do. I still do this today, and one constant over the last thirty-seven years has been my yellowing copy of The Penguin English Dictionary Second Edition complied by G.N. Garmonsway. I have kept it close by since I bought it at Blackwell’s, Oxford’s famous bookstore, for one pound. It might be the best investment I ever made.

But now back to our obfuscated world and a recent example that comes to mind. My golf-loving brother-in-law came to visit and after driving all day up from the South he needed to find out the standings of the PGA tournament. He headed for our backroom where the flat screen television resides, grabbed the first remote in sight and started pushing buttons. In horror my wife and I ran into the room to disarm him before disaster struck.

Though I am sure many of you will relate to my tale; some background is needed here. Due to our total inability to make sense of our audio-visual equipment (something akin to my parents struggle with their VCR) I bought a universal remote and then paid a young technician quite a hefty sum to program it. After multiple visits and a new receiver, his efforts were successful, but now we lived in constant fear that an errant push of a button would transport us back to the dark days of four remotes with Post-it notes outlining the proper sequence of keystrokes.

He was not to be deterred and went for each remote in sight. Voices were raised, but family has no privilege here, and he had to be subdued. We gained control after a tense stand off. Once order was restored his big sister had a heart-to-heart, while I hide the other three remotes. Finally he was able to sit back and watch catapulting white balls as much as he liked, which I can report he did for the entire weekend.

This is what I mean by obfuscate. The obfuscation (confusion resulting from failure to understand) of things that were straightforward in the past is the preoccupation of contemporary culture. Here are just a few examples.

Think of your phone, Internet, cable or satellite services. Think of the choices of audio formats: MP3, CD, DVD, not to mention the renewed interest in long-playing vinyl records by the young who are searching for simplicity. Think of going to buy a new flat screen TV and think about when it is time to sign up for your healthcare and retirement plans.

This plethora of choices is masquerading as progress. Don’t get me wrong here; I love my gadgets as much as the next person but I will admit to certain weariness with it all.

Rikyu said in his Hundred Verses (here translated by Gretchen Mittwer), “To learn how to make good koicha (thick tea), you must make it time and again and get a good sense of it.” How then can there be time to get a good sense of the world if our time is spent trying to understand that, which is meant to confuse.

Volume 5820 (4), 8/20/2010

The Beat

The beat has changed. I know this because of my vantage point on Carrie Rose at the mouth of Montrose Harbor. All summer I listen to powerboats full of partygoers coming and going. The pace quickens as the summer moves on. It does not take much to discourage this reverie, and restore peace and quiet: a few clouds, a temperature below 85 and they disappear. But while it is warm and sunny their presence is hard to ignore.

I have been sitting here on one boat or another for 15 years, and only just this year—2010—do I notice that the primal rhythm has changed, become simpler. It is as if the more complex our society becomes, the simpler its rhythm.

This is not universally true. Anyone who listens, or tries to listen to modern classical music can attest to this. I am speaking here of popular culture, or at fifty-seven, what I perceive it to be.

I cannot say I like the new beat any better than the old, but I can say that my foot starts to automatically fall in with it, as do my hips. Not a pretty sight I know, the latter moving somewhat reluctantly these days unlike the gyrating twenty-something’s passing by.

Over the years from my perch I have listened to Sinatra, folk, rock, heavy metal, grunge, a lot of Jimmy Buffet, and now, I am not sure what to call it without sounding foolish, maybe hip-hop or rap. For all I know these terms are passé.

It is an unadorned beat felt in your gut. The beat appears to be the focal point despite the lugubrious voices that accompany the music. Change the words and keep the beat, and I doubt it will alter much on the boats that parade by on any warm summer afternoon.

Prior to the sun reaching it's zenith the boats quietly depart, only to exuberantly return around happy hour. I can set my clock by the regularity of it. As I see them return I often treat myself to a glass of wine, and sit back to watch the show. The beat may or may not continue on into the night, the only requisite being a Monday off.

I am not singling out power boaters here. After all I am one, but it is only powerboats that exhibit these traits. Sail boaters are too busy husbanding their electrons to spare the watts needed for such sonic displays. And display it is. No different than a peacock, though it seems to be the women of our species that are most involved. Though we are an equal opportunity harbor and there are plenty of boats with rainbow colored flags strutting their stuff.

Is the beat universal, I think yes. Is the beat drowning out ethnic beats, I think yes to that to. Despite the popularity of world music, my impression is that ethnic music may be more popular in the west than in the countries of origin. But then again I am no expert, just an observer with an opinion.

Several years ago the Japanese consulate helped sponsor traditional art forms. The one that sticks with me, because of the beat and the tayu (the voice), as unfathomable as it was, is bunraku. I cannot begin to describe the impact the music made on me, and how utterly different it was from what I am accustomed to.

The tayu performed with such vigor, such intensity and with such feeling that only an operatic soprano or tenor can compare. It left me speechless and in tears even though I had only a vague sense of the words. This has happened before: Puccini’s operas Turandot and Tosca, Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending and Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, to mention a few.

All these grab at my soul. I can understand Puccini’s affect on me. He was after all from Lucca, my father’s ancestral home in Italy. But bunraku, where does that come from. It does not matter. Culture transcends borders, and that is why I do not try to suppress my foot tapping and my hips swaying with the beat of music I will never relish.

The visuals and sounds fade as the boats move back into the harbor but the beat remains. It is as if they are deserting the beat. Leaving it to mingle with the other sounds in the harbor and to linger in my mind.

Volume 5816 (4), 7/23/2010

Golden

Iron, clay, wood, paper, bamboo—all have intrinsic properties bestowed upon them by their unique molecular structure. This is true of everything, but I was thinking of chanoyu, and the structure of the tea world and our place in it. From Kyoto chanoyu filtered down to Chicago fifty years ago, and it has been my great fortune to be part of Chado Urasenke Tankokai Chicago Association for one-half of its history.

Through the guidance and leadership of Diasosho Hounsai and Oiemoto Zabosai, the past and present grand tea masters; their knowledge past on by remarkable teachers, both present and in our memories; and by the practice of dedicated students, the association has been connected to the wider world of tea beyond the Midwest. It is in these relationships that community is nurtured. Through every small act in the mizuya, and through every gesture in temae, we are drawn closer together.

Much has changed over the years, but the basic tenets of chado—Harmony, Respect, Purity, Tranquility—have not. These principles allow us to bring the practice of chanoyu into our daily lives. And so, in the spirit of one time, one meeting, we welcomed guests to share in our golden anniversary.

The Chicago Association commemorated its 50th anniversary this year with a celebratory luncheon on May 23rd. It was held at the Hyatt Regency across from the Chicago River in the heart of the city. The event began by welcoming each guest with a sweet made by one of our members. Guests were then served tea from a Misono-dana with a large red nodate parasol at its side to help provide the feeling of a warm spring day, which it turned out to be. After tea the guests were asked to view a slide show and video of our history.

A commemorative tea was presented with Ishikawa Sojin Sensei and Ishikawa Soko Sensei from the Deputy Corps of Gyotei at Urasenke Konnichian, and Kayoko Soka Hirota Sensei (the recently appointed Chief of Administration at the New York Branch of the Urasenke Foundation) as guests. Our wish for all present was to symbolically share in the partaking of tea with our honored guest to commemorate the many who have contributed to tea in Chicago, both past and present, and to look towards the future.

We were privileged to have Consul General George Hisaeda make opening remarks, as well as words from David Mungenast representing Japan House at The University of Illinois. Sojin Sensei then offered an appreciation from Diasosho Hounsai and Oiemoto Zabosai. A musical interlude from the world-renowned pipa musician Wei Yang followed lunch. We were also pleased to have the past president of the association from 1988 to 2000, Dr. Edwin Miller, in attendance.

The luncheon was preceded by a two-day seminar taught by Ishikawa Sojin Gyotei Sensei with Ishikawa Soko Sensei and Kayoko Soka Hirota Sensei assisting. Because of the generosity of the Consul General George Hisaeda, and Consul and Director of the Japan Information Center, Akira Tajima, we were able to hold the seminar at the Japan Information Center. Friends from California, Kansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky attended the all day classes.

With iron, clay, wood, paper and bamboo we practiced, learned and celebrated together for several warm spring days. For me, Ishikawa Sojin Sensei concisely summed up my wish for 50th when he said, “We always have to be thinking about the guest.” “The main point,” he said, “is the relationship between the host and the guest.” With this in mind I asked all to stand at the luncheon to toast the golden anniversary of tea in Chicago … Kampai!

Volume 5812 (4), 6/18/2010

Transfiguration

Stelly lies magnificently surrounded by flowers, confined in the place of honor at the front of the parlor. Entering at the back, over the shoulder of her father, a beautiful—not yet full-term—infant gazes at the gathered. One spark of life replenishing a spark gone out; is this interrelationship of spirits god, or is there no need for labels.

In need of consolation, I think of the Buddha. I think of change and impermanence, of sickness and death, and of seeking. We live in a world driven to find answers to the unanswerable. Why bother, better to spend time more concretely: time with friends and family, time on boats and bikes, time in cluttered basements full of half completed projects.

Now that the wind has warmed and the bird’s songs have increased in tempo there is also time for the garden. No need for an alarm clock this time of year. Our feathered friends are up before dawn; making up for a long winter spent huddled in the next-door neighbor’s blue spruce. Courting English sparrows (not my favorite bird) put on noisy aerial displays that rival those of the Blue Angels.

The backyard’s dingy grey soil is streaked with the green and purple of garlic, hostas, tulips, peonies and of course, a multitude of weeds. The grass begins to grow like tuffs of poorly cut hair. After being covered by a foot of winter’s mushy snow the soil is now dry and cracked. I feel the need for rain, as do the plants. When it finally rains—days and nights of cold drizzle—all growth ceases. Every thing is on hold, waiting for the sun and then with an explosion of growth, winter is over. It does not matter what happens now: another snowstorm or frost is irrelevant.

This spring has been especially vibrant. Buds galore: white and purple and green and pink. I hear on the radio that this is more evidence of global warming. A silver lining, and then I think about the new pest appearing in the garden and my glee is tempered.

Soon I will be fifty-seven. Long enough to have seen a few cycles come and go. Long enough to recognize patterns and to expect change. I continually look over my shoulder for the next squall. My diligence is not misplaced. Man-made or natural calamities are never far behind.

In the end all is transfigured: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We cope and we succumb. My days are full of such revelations. I watch people knowingly speed towards their own end. It is, as above, a recognition of patterns. What can I say to convince my patients to recognize the danger, but at this, sorry to say, I am a failure. Uncontrolled blood sugar and cholesterol, sky-rocketing blood pressure, miserable diets, no exercise, substance abuse; is it ignorance or lack of common sense. I think not. It is habit and up bringing, and I suppose stubbornness.

In this you have the makings of a disaster. From healthy vibrant souls to dissipation, but this is too negative a tone for spring. We have four months of hope and growth ahead of us. Four months for raspberries, pole beans, basil, tomatoes and zucchini. They grow from tiny seeds under grow lamps in my front room into large flourishing backyard plants.

We have four months to store the hope and energy of spring and summer: four months of cleansing thunderstorms and deep humid heat; four months of fluffy cumulus clouds and gentle southeast winds; four months to transform ourselves from cold and grumpy into warm and elated.

It is the same every year even if is not expected in the frigid darkness of February. So now we live with memories and expectations. Memories of a once cheerful soul now departed and expectations that a similarly cheerful soul will emerge from her father’s back to bring the same joy into the world—our world.

Volume 5809 (4), 5/21/2010

Leaving

The sun is only a red glow beneath the eastern horizon. Still moist air covers the boat with dew. The wet mooring lines slip through the hawser holes and as they fall away, we bid farewell to the boats that make up our floating neighborhood. The only witnesses to Carrie Rose’s departure between the red and green towers that mark the harbor’s mouth are the fishermen that line its perimeter.

Once in Lake Michigan’s swell our anticipation wanes, replaced by an awareness of the noise and vibration generated by a nine-ton Nordic Tug. Lenore, the sailboat we owned for a decade, was much different. Sails would be raised and adjusted for the appropriate heading, and then off with the engine. Its racket replaced by the sound of wind and waves, and by the boat’s creaking.

This creaking may be why boat owners drink a bit too much. It is in a futile attempt to block out the noise and get a good night sleep. When on board most skippers spend the night in a state of suspended animation, subconsciously listening for any change in the boat’s distinctive sound. I was nearing thirty when my body informed me that drinking to excess was no longer allowed. I conceded and so, when on the boat I am destined to spend the night on call.

It is reminiscent of internship. At five in the afternoon, as opposed to five in the morning, I would pass through an imaginary harbor mouth onto the floor of a foreign place that was, moments before, familiar turf. A hospital at night has rhythms not unlike the lake. Sometimes it is smooth as glass, sometimes choppy and sometimes, large rollers plummet the shore. Plus, there is always the possibility of a squall.

A night intern has a small cell to retreat into. It is analogous to a boat’s cabin. When given the chance, I would settle fully clothed into a corner berth and try to keep the various implements of a uniformed intern from prodding my weary flesh. On calm nights a boat generates white noise that helps initiates sleep. Not so in the hospital. Hospitals exude a sickly fluorescent hum. The attempt to calm a stimulated mind seldom works before the next crisis materializes.

In both cases the modern world is left behind for a primal one. One ruled by meteorology, the other by biology. Neither of these cares for our comfort. This, I think, is why superstitions abound in boating and medicine: never leave the harbor for an extended cruise on Friday; never ask why the beds are empty in an emergency room. Either will bring the wrath of nature, or man, down upon the unlucky protagonist.

No matter the context, eventually we have to leave our comfort zone. We can do it with style or be dragged kicking and screaming. In quiet times I think back to the individuals I have known. Many whom I thought were the least encumbered, turned out to be quite the opposite.

As an example, 1980 found me in a small Iowa town. My classmate Louie (from New Jersey) asked me to help him tend bar. We were Italian-American males separated from our mothers with no reliable source of Parmesan cheese. It was disheartening and because of it we bonded. It was agreed that he would work M-W-F and I, T-TH-S. The tavern was filled with local art and imported beer. It was an oasis of sorts, popular with college kids on the weekends, and thirty-year-old professionals and their staff during the week. Slowly, I noticed the same faces staring back at me on my regular tour of duty.

On occasion Louie and I would trade nights. This distressed the patrons. Unbeknownst to us, our ministrations were unique enough to develop a following. It was then that I realized they were never going to leave, no matter how unpleasant they perceived their circumstances. Leaving was not a choice for them.

Sobered by this, I determined to live a life unafraid of leaving. Leaving the comfort of harbor, home, religion, diet, and profession. Of course, on occasion I have ignored the impulse. But there it will be, hovering in the background of my ill-considered decision until made right.

A harbor mouth is a cliché unless you have left through one and broken your tie with the familiar. Once accomplished, you are forever armed with the knowledge that leaving accelerates time and makes the past irrevocable. Only then are you able to comfortably watch the red of the setting sun silhouetting the buildings to the west without longing to leave.


Volume 5860 (4), 4/3/2010

Rikyuki

In the past I have written about Sen Rikyu, the founder of chado, or the way of tea, who we will honor on March 28th at the Japan Information Center. Rikyuki, the 419th anniversary of his death, is not a demonstration as much as it is a commemoration. There is no running commentary engendering a more introspective attitude.

Reviewing my notes for Rikyuki each year gives me a chance to rethink the telling of the tale and inspires me to get my books out to see what else I can learn about Rikyu and chado. This inevitably leads me to delve deeper into Japanese culture.

While rereading my speech for Rikyuki a little voice reminds me that it takes ten year to do any thing well. Granted we assume we become experts in a much shorter time, but if we persist in our study the realization of how little we knew at the start of our endeavors comes as a shock. This conceit is necessary of course. How else could we ever find the confidence to begin? So in that light, I present a short history of Rikyu and chado, and look forward to next year when I will doubtlessly know more.

Sen Rikyu passed by his own hand on February 28, 1591, being ordered to do so by Togotomi Hideyoshi, the military dictator who unified Japan. Rikyu was the head tea master for Hideyoshi, a position akin to being cultural minister. When Rikyu’s popularity began to out shine that of Hideyoshi’s he was order to commit ritual suicide. (This is just one of the supposed reasons.) Once Rikyu was dead, Hideyoshi is said to have anguished over his death for many months and refused to appoint a successor.

Sen Rikyu transitioned to “soan” tea (tea of the thatched hut) from “shoin” tea (tea of the Golden Pavilion), which served as a vehicle to display one’s power and stature. Rikyu is the product of several tea masters. Their attempt to change the corrupt practice of tea in the early 16th century ultimately succeeded, but not without the tragedy of Rikyu’s death.

Juko, who lived from 1422-1502, is considered the father of the tea ceremony and is attributed to have said, “I have no taste for the full moon”. By this he meant that the moon, half hidden by clouds, is more moving than its full round image. At that time tea was centered on the use of Chinese objects. Japanese crafts were considered inferior to their Chinese counter parts.

Juko supplanted this to a tea based on Japanese utensils from the provinces. He led the rediscovery of art objects that are not completely perfect or ideal. A popular author even today, Okakura Tenshin, in his 1906 book, The Book of Tea, describes this as “a worship of the imperfect.” This sensibility is known as wabi. Juko, along with wabi, instituted the tradition of the 4.5 mat tearoom.

Takeno Jo-o (1502-1555), another tea master, built upon Juko’s work and eventually became Rikyu’s teacher. Jo-o altered the tearoom to include the plain clay walls, bamboo-lattice ceiling and the use of unfinished wood for the tokonoma that we are familiar with today. Jo-o’s tea revealed the informal beauty of the natural world. This concept, along with Okakura Tenshin’s “worship of the imperfect”, is known as wabi-sabi.

Sen Rikyu (1522-1591), the son of an affluent merchant, became Jo-o’s disciple in 1541. Rikyu’s style, which was derived from both Juko and Jo-o, was in opposition to the gaudy tea practices of the time. His tea reflects the natural environment as opposed to the cosmopolitan one that had influenced tea before and during the 16th century.

Rikyu created tearooms smaller than 4.5 mats and these rooms, being impractical spaces, served no other purpose than tea. The tiny tearooms incorporated a crawl-in entrance that forced the participants, no matter how distinguished, to bow low and crawl into the tearoom.

Rikyu molded chanoyu into a spiritual discipline and this may be what ultimately sealed his fate. Rikyu and his predecessors created and have preserved tea as it is practiced today, whether in a secluded natural setting or a large conference room. The present 16th generation Grand Tea Master Zabosai Oiemoto, carries on in the tradition of Rikyu.

Rikyu left the following poems at his death. The first composed in Chinese, the second in Japanese.

Over seventy years of life,
What trouble and concern,
I welcome the sword which,
Slays all Buddha’s, all Dharmas!

The sword, which has ever been
Close at hand,
I now throw into the sky.

Volume 5800 (4), 3/19/2010

Silence

Silence — I pay a considerable amount each month to avoid it. Amongst my friends I am probably the least invested in telecommunications. I have basic cable that provides me with 300 channels, of which I watch three percent. I had a XM Radio, but cancelled it. I retain a smart phone with no Internet, and a landline to receive paid political endorsements and DSL.

There is the iPod touch in my briefcase and a couple of old iPods I know not where. Then there are the legacy components: CD player, cassette deck, tube amps, turntable and a reel-to-reel. Oh, did I forget to mention the newsletters, magazines, newspapers and books. It is a struggle to keep up.

My first memories of media are with Aunt Sarah. I lived above Aunt Sarah and Uncle Bob in the two flat that our families shared. Before day care existed, she did her best to watch her son John and me. It was not an easy job, but it was made easier in the mid 60’s when Uncle Bob bought a tiny black and white TV in a fancy wooden cabinet. The screen was the size of an open paperback book. It was my introduction to the warm glow of a cathode ray tube. I remember staying up late to watch the moon landing and skipping naps in the afternoon to watch Captain Kangaroo.

A few years later I got into the act by buying a baby blue AM radio. I taped it to my bike’s handlebars, and rode around the neighborhood listening to rhythm and blues beamed from the South Side of Chicago. These memories are part of me. I cannot deny their influence. They compete for space in my mind along with the present electronic chatter.

Creativity follows an ephemeral thread that begins with inspiration. It fights to be noticed above the foreground noise. With all the distractions the best ideas are the ones that get away. One day I had a revelation while watching Seinfeld. I noticed that he kept paper and pencil by the side of his bed. If an idea stirred him, he captured the errant thought before it escaped. This simple practice comforted me. I started to carry some type of recording device, stopped wasting my time trying to recall missed ideas and got to work imagining new ones.

A friend’s autographed photograph from Phillip Roth caught my interest. Roth is his favorite author and this was all the endorsement I needed to start reading his novels. They center on a fictional character named Zuckerman. We follow him as he struggles to become a successful author. At the beginning of the third novel he is financially independent, in chronic pain, divorced three times, and unable to write.

His creative process has waned. He cannot reconcile the isolation of his chosen profession. For him silence is maddening. It takes courage to seek out quietude and confront one’s thoughts. Introspection is not always welcomed. All kinds of thoughts can surface. They can inspire, confront, be demonic or heavenly, freeing or imprisoning. Take your pick.

I have a visceral understanding of this. In my late teens I pulled together three hundred bucks to buy my first car. With it I left on a solitary journey out west. My first stop was Las Cruces, NM to meet up with two high school friends who were spending the summer re-enacting Easy Rider. We covered vast distances in a month of wandering. Finally it was time for me to return home. We split up at the Grand Canyon. I turned right and they turned left.

The trip home lacked the anticipation that kept my mind occupied during the start of the adventure. I was left with too much windshield time in an old VW beetle that was slowly tearing itself apart. I will skip the details other than to say I got very squirrelly in the week it took me to get home. I never had to deal with only myself for so long. It was not pretty, but it served a purpose.

By the time I drove up to my house on Campbell Avenue I had gained confidence. I got the car home — no small feat in itself — and along the way work through many adolescent issues. It was not a complete success, but it was a start. I am still working on it, searching for that silent moment, whether it be staring out a windshield or sitting in a quiet kitchen after midnight.

Volume 5796 (4), 2/19/2010

Nature

Nature is a vague concept. For city dwellers it is a far off place to venture to. There should be adventure and a little danger involve in the trek. Nature is found in mountains and jungles and amongst ocean waves. Most experience nature second hand through the eyes of rutty explorers on PBS or The Discovery Channel, but I go about my day surrounded by it.

On the surface this is a ridiculous assertion from a person with tongue depressors in one pocket and a stethoscope in the other. Nonetheless I contend that interacting with nature’s most remarkable creation is as close to nature as I can get.

First thing in the morning I scan my schedule for new patients. I enjoy the initial interaction. It keeps my brain stimulated; searching for a feeling or a thought, call it intuition, to begin unraveling the mystery present in each person. The schedule seldom presents me with clues and when it does, such declarations are rarely the entire story. It is anyone’s guess whom, with what, will show up.

Nature is illusive. It creeps up on me as I walk between examining rooms. My brow furrows. I concentrate, thinking it will reveal itself, but it fades. I can feel, almost taste it, but it is just out of my grasp. Instead of frustration, I find the vagueness comforting. To be at a stage of my life where nature feels comfortable enough to hover close is more than I can hope for.

Moving quickly from room to room I wonder if this is a way to spend a life. Most of what I do is fill out perplexing forms, laden with questions begging answers that do not exist for the circumstances patients find themselves in. The forms demand to be completed. Instead of using skills learned through long study and hard experience to start the process of healing, I search for creative ways to dot the I’s and cross the T’s.

Thankfully, this is not always the case. This day a friend/patient is waiting to see me in one of my little rooms. We reviewed his medication, I examined him and then ordered a few test to monitor the effectiveness of his treatment. We talk fleetingly about the biochemistry involved in his prescriptions (he is a chemist) and then he brings up Supernova 2007bi.

This often happens when we meet. It might not be this specific supernova or a supernova at all, but whatever it is, it is usually many parsecs away. This is nature represented by neutrinos, gamma and x-rays, dark matter, collapsing iron cores of massive stars, luminous dust clouds of nebula, and black holes that spin whole solar systems at relativistic speeds around and around their centers.

These are near impossible to imagine, but not impossible to measure. We have spent thousands of years observing nature. Our data collecting skill accelerated with the help of advances in engineering, material and computer science, mathematics and least we not forget, chemistry and physics. What we need now is time to interpret the details and come up with a grand vision. Even then, I cannot help but feel that nature will remain an ephemeral idea.

I am not sure why these premonitions appear at work. Are they trying to catch me off guard? When I get them I hope for lunch. Maybe then I can sit and think. This seldom happens. If I manage to get some time I scurry out the back door before things intercede. A pager is attached to my hip. It will lure me back if need be.

Once outdoors a core of old stylized buildings surround me. A range of empty high-rise condominiums hems these in. There are the local panhandlers on their designated corners. They recognize me, and though I have never contributed to their well being, they address me, “How’s ya doing today boss?” I nod and keep moving across a large eight-lane road that reluctantly permits me to cross. Then I walk into the heart of the city.

At times I have coffee and a donut for lunch or a sandwich or nothing, just walk. I wonder is there nature amongst the concrete, asphalt and Corten steel. Of course the answer is yes. Men and women, humankind, envelop me.

Depending on the season I study different aspects. It is winter now, so the pickings are slim. I analyze gait, but this is hampered if there is rain or snow. I glimpse faces, but here again if Lou Rawls Mighty Hawk is blowing, heads are tucked deep into collars and scarves are wrapped around and around necks.

I think of spring and what peculiar fashion will materialize. Last summer young women were wearing shorts with knee high boots. This winter, as if in opposition, young males are dressed appropriately from head to mid torso, then with shorts exposing hairy legs and the inevitable tacky tattoo. There are always the homeless layered in multiples of coats and blankets, seemingly afraid to discard any, least they not have them when times get worse. They dress the same no matter what the season.

I typically spend too much time wandering and must hurry back to the office. Deep thoughts are difficult to ponder with heart racing and breath coming in short spurts. I take different paths hoping for inspiration, but become distracted watching college freshmen shivering and puffing on their ten dollar a pack cigarette.

Nature pokes and prods at this city dweller all day, and even though it fails to reveal itself, I will it away … I have forms to complete!

Volume 5792 (4), 1/22/2010