Shame

Shameful moments are hard to displace. Memories surface at the oddest times, in random fashion, and then leave me in a hot flash. There must be a chunk of the brain’s white matter devoted to retaining each indiscretion. I believe I have comported myself well since my mother, Theresa, bore me in 1953. Though there are moments - decisions and actions - I regret. 

Shame drives many of our actions, whether right or wrong headed. This is happening to our country. The USA has been forced to confront the shame of our past: slavery, internment, unjust wars, and misogyny, to name a few. They hide undetected and occasionally surface to test the waters but seeing a storm develop, seek safety in a dark space once again.

There are few dark spaces to hide in any longer, so this will have to play out. I was going to say, it is gonna be ugly, but no need to look to the future when the present is starring us in the face. 

 

Many years ago, an old flame unexpectedly called me to request a meeting. I suggested we meet at Berghoff’s basement restaurant, a wonderful (and neutral) place that I sorely miss. After a few sips of beer and as lunch was placed before us, the small talk ceased and the real reason for the meeting commenced. Up to that point I was clueless as to why we were meeting, which was probably the original sin in the first place. 

 

She was there to apologize for her behavior twenty years ago. As I looked back, I was as much to blame, but nonetheless I quietly listened and resisted the urge to implicate myself. I do not know how much time elapsed but when I finally looked up there stood the entire black and white clad staff looking at us, the only people left in the restaurant. We quickly went our ways. It was an odd moment that shame had provoked, and forced me to evaluate my past behavior.

 

The country needs to reconcile, and it might not be a bad idea to do it over lunch and a beer. It has been done in many places: South Africa, Vietnam, and Europe after WWII. We need to do this before it becomes necessary to have a repeat of the Nuremberg trial.

 

In a way, the lies and conspiracy theories remind me of the hysteria before the Millennia. I certainly understood that there might be a software glitch but I failed to see how this was going to lead to the rapture. About three months before the end of the world, I received my new Visa card with an expiration date of 3/2003. If I had any doubts about the earth continuing to orbit the sun on New Years this allayed my fears.

 

And speaking of the Millennia, I have faith in the Millennial’s and in the generations that follow them to force their parents and grandparents to deal with their shame in a constructive, no matter how grudgingly, fashion. Who doesn’t want a better life for their grandkids, a life full of joy and not hate, a life full of hope and not shame. I’ll drink to that!

February 2021

Space

 

Two activities (besides writing this column) that consume me are chanoyu, the tea ceremony; and the shakuhachi, an end blow flute. They have a few common threads. The first is obvious, the second not so much. The first: both are a part of Japanese culture. Both have roots in China. Chanoyu, at least the type I practice, has developed for close to 500 years. The shakuhachi’s history is probably closer to double that. 

Chanoyu’s pivotal figure is Sen Riyku. Though chado (the way of tea) existed before him, he set the standard we follow today. The shakuhachi has no such person. There are “modern” teachers and virtuosos but they are only present from the 19th century on. The origins of the shakuhachi are shrouded in chants emanating from forest temples 900 years ago.

 

The second: space, is harder to describe. It is an ill defined term, and both physical and intellectual. There is outer space and the space alluded to in the phrase “Give me some space”. A person can be spaced out, and during the Cold War, there was a space race. Everything in the universe, no matter how large or small, is separated by space.  

 

I did not look up space in a dictionary. Slumped in my kitchen chair, I closed my eyes, and let my mind wander in inner space and let it search through my experiences that relate to space. Despite having an espresso, I did nod off. It is so quiet since Covid emptied the airspace over my house.

 

In chanoyu there is a moment, just after the kensui (waste water container) is moved forward, when it is appropriate to stop and compose oneself before making matcha. No teacher has told me how long to pause. It is a rare time to consider the years of study that lead up to this moment. A time to reflect, with courage and curiosity, if I should move forward and reach for the chawan to place it in front of me. It is a simple task with profound consequences.

 

And then there is the shakuhachi. It may say D, F, G, A, or C on the tuner but these are manmade constraints. Each pitch has infinite variability. Most musicians, no matter the instrument or genre, play a bit of Bach. Do any of them sound like the other? They play the same notes, but each performance is unique. 

 

I have a few shakuhachi works lodged in my memory. Can I ever play them the same; the answer is frustratingly no! Several have quickly played threads of notes. My old mangled hands have trouble moving from one fingering to the next, plainly missing a note or adding a wayward one. 

 

No matter how fast the notes are to be played, there is space between them. And that space can be infinitely divided. As I play each note, I search for the interval that will allow me to express each note clearly while adhering to the wishes of the composer. Often, when listening to virtuosic performances these passages are amalgamated into a blur of sound, but at the same time hidden within the shakuhachi’s breathy tone, each note is articulated. I search for that space in my playing. Not filling the empty space between each note is a hard won skill.

 

When I began to speak in public, it was pointed out to me that I was speaking too fast. I intentionally began to pause between each word. It felt and still feels awkward but is more effective. This is what I attempt to do when playing the shakuhachi. The wisdom is in the silence and not the noise.

 

Since chanoyu and the shakuhachi have developed for hundreds of years, I am not upset that my performance, for the lack of a better word, still develops despite the decades of practice. Of course, as everyday passes there is one day less to master my art. The truncated space left to me needs to be infinitely divisible.

December 2020

Treasure

I was recently looking through my treasure trove of photographs related to the Urasenke Chado Tankokai Chicago Association. What triggered this retrospective was an invitation to participate in the Urasenke Tankokai North American Chado Relay on Facebook. The Chicago Association was assigned three dates (10/8,9,10/2020) to post photographs and comments related to the history of the association, the various activities we participate in, and how we are coping with the pandemic.    

The first group of photos represented a snapshot of the association’s history. The first picture was taken before the association existed with Daisosho (the now retired 15th generation grand tea master) planting the seed that lead to the formation of the Chicago Association. Others show us preparing tea for the opening of the Parliament of the World’s Religion in 1993, and at the site of the original Japanese Garden that was built for the 1883 World’s Fair. 

 

There are pictures of our 50th Anniversary in 2010, an image of chanoyu while floating down the Chicago River in fall, and pictures at the Chicago Botanical Garden and the Japanese Information Center where in normal times we demonstrate tea several times each year. And finally pictures of Daisosho offering  Peacefulness through a Bowl of Tea in honor of the fallen at 9/11. The history presented in the photographs helps remind the association to remain true in our efforts to represent the finest of Japanese culture to Chicagoland.           

 

The next post focused on how we are adapting to the many issues that Covid-19 continues to force to the forefront. Chado, despite its Zen trappings, is profoundly interactive. It is hard to do tea alone in a room and have it be meaningful. Chanoyu calls out for the participation of others. After all, most of what we do is centered upon the guest. 

 

Now that I have said this, I admit that sharing tea on ZOOM has been surprisingly fulfilling. Of course, it is cumbersome. It is hard to practice being a guest. The Internet cuts out. The sound is garbled. The camera needs to be moved. These are impediments, but I find that the connection with like minded individuals far outweighs the above inconveniences. The technology makes practice possible. And it has motivated me to use the dogu (tea ware) hidden in my closet to provide a little peace of mind by making a bowl of tea. 

 

The final post was a plea, with a few past and present photographs, to not forget the past or despair of lost opportunities, but cherish what we have done to bring people together through a bowl of tea. Chanoyu requires much preparation, much of it behind the scene, and it takes years of study, really a lifetime to appreciate the subtle beauty of each movement whether in the mizuya or in a chashitsu. And this hard fought skill and training should help propel us to continue study and to remain connected.   

 

The Urasenke Tankokai North American Chado Relay shows, how chanoyu connects the disparate tea communities. We have the multiple tea folk that had the inspiration to organize this virtual event to thank for the realization that we are not alone. So, in the end, for me at least, the message was to remain connected in whatever way possible, until we are free to gather once more. Stay safe until then, enjoy a bowl of tea, and don’t forget the okashi! 

October 2020      

 

Catastrophe

 

The Chado Urasenke Tankokai Chicago Association, of which I am the president, is sixty years old this year - 2020. We planned a celebration with multiple tea events and a trip to Japan, and then had to cancel due to Covid-19. The former in March just before the true enormity of the pandemic was known, and the latter in July when the catastrophe was full blown.

 

It was organizationally and emotionally difficult to cancel an event that involved guests from the entire country and beyond. Watching the work our members had put in unravel was painful. Especially, if it is possible to remember, this was done in March while there was still hope the virus would dissipate and all would return too normal. 

 

I am not here to rehash the management of the virus and its sequel, but to discuss our association’s response to it. The association wanted to bestow several unique gifts upon the attendees as a thank you for helping us celebrate our sixtieth. 

 

To this end, members, lead by a gracious and talented member who is a fiber artist, designed and began to construct a satchel for each guest, both male and female. It was meticulous work requiring screen printing, cutting, and sewing of material. Unfortunately, the process was never completed.

 

In addition to the satchels, we ordered over 100 kobukusa. Kobukusa have a unique place in the repertoire of tea gear. They are small squares (15cm) of ornate fabric that are magically made with a fold on one side and hidden seams on the other three. Both the host and the guest carry these with them during the tea ceremony; a practical gift that would have brought back memories with each use. 

 

A kobukusa is used when handling various tea objects, such as natusme (tea caddy), chawan (tea bowl), and chashaku (tea scoop) to name a few. I received one as a gift for attending the commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the Urasenke’s retired 15th generation oeimoto (Genshitsu Sen XV) for introducing chanoyu to the western world. 

 

Its gold woven fabric is the background for palm trees, bougainvillea, mountains, and waves, and captures the joyous nature of the Hawaiian island where the celebration was held. When I use it, I smile and think of the island’s warm breezes and the camaraderie we shared. 

 

Those memories are why as I age my home becomes the repository of more and more knickknacks, and to take a clue from Marcel Proust, they are Remembrances of Things Past. In normal times, the clutter is derided but in a time of catastrophe, the memories these trinkets enliven prove their worth, too many memories to let go.

September 2020

Visitor

Visitor

 

Just about anywhere, if I am quiet, something happens. A little bit, or in this case, a big bit of nature turns up. Please pardon me, I know I have droned on about the backyard this year but for 2020, it is my cruising grounds. 

 

In the past the grounds have been the billion year old rocks of the North Channel on Lake Huron, and the Trent Severn and Rideau canals of Canada; Lake Champlain and the Hudson River; NYC and the coast of New Jersey; and the Chesapeake’s estuaries. It has been Downeast Maine’s rocky coast and the adventures associated with negotiating the Bay of Fundy’s tides and currents. 

 

Every one of these is worthy of comment, and when I can pry myself away from the present dilemma, their images occupy the free space left in my mind. On occasion, that something that happens drags the natural world, even in the middle of a metropolis like Chicago, into view. 

 

In July, the backyard’s west facing patio began to heat up despite deploying a large sun blocking umbrella. During the day, an elm shades the east facing front room making it a cooler place to put one’s feet up. But as five o’clock nears, the back of the house becomes approachable. 

 

I move the garbage picked white plastic chair onto the grass. A thirty foot blue spruce (planted a few weeks after moving in) provides shade. At first, I sit straight to read but after a few paragraphs slump and begin to nod off. I give in to the languor of the warm summer afternoon.

 

It is nice if there is a breeze. The wind chimes make cooling sounds, and the meter high plants and vegetables rustle creating white noise that almost negates the air conditioner’s buzz. The backyard fills with bird songs.

 

Sparrows are noisy little creatures that are given to hysteria; I typically ignore their outbursts. I might raise an eyelid if they are particularly boisterous and that is what happened this particular afternoon: screeching and then a whoosh directly off my bow. In the wake of the brown blur that had passed, came a batch of house sparrows in hot pursuit.

      

I turned to my left and there, two power poles away was a magnificent hawk being ravaged, verbally at least by the gang of sparrows. I lunged up the back porch’s stairs to retrieve my trusty Nikon SLR with the 18-200mm lens that I keep close for such occasions. I thought please stay put, don’t fly away until I can capture the moment. It did but not before moving a bit more to the left to put distance between itself and the noisy hoard.

 

In years of taking photographs, especially since the advent of cheap memory, I have learned to snap multiple pictures and not worry about the particulars of framing, exposure, back lighting, composition, all the things that are taught in photography 101 courses. Time is unforgiving, never to be repeated. Get the image while it is there and worry about the details later. 

 

And later I identified the hawk to be an immature Cooper’s hawk. Its immaturity (this is I anthropomorphizing) is the reason it let itself be bullied by the sparrows. Nonetheless, it was an impressive raptor standing well over a foot with perfectly quaffed brown and white plumage. It must have been stunned by the sparrow’s reaction, as it sat looking perplexed for quite sometime.

 

Eventually, at the sparrows urging it took off south and once more, they took up the chase. To watch this badass bird being put in its place by such a diminutive force was thought provoking. I am sure there was a moral in this, but the languor quickly set in and I resumed nodding.      

 

August 2020 

Value

 

It is a quiet morning. The few jets that now fly over us come in spurts morning and late afternoon. Most are large freighters with indistinguishable colors. They often fly different patterns due to the skies being clear of traffic. 

 

It makes me think how we took the value of our life style for granted. Since last fall I tried to suppress the feeling, let’s call it instinct, that there would be a reckoning. The chance that this level of bad behavior was not going to have consequences was remote. 

 

A good example is my own behavior the last few months. Like many others sitting at home baking became an outlet. Bread is my main go too, and so I retrieved the sourdough recipe and grew a starter. This in itself is not an issue. There is not much bad that can come from sourdough bread. 

 

But it did not end there. After watching Julia Childs and Jacques Pepin’s old TV shows, experiments with various buttered dough began. Some recipes are more elaborate than others. Some require a bit of technique, and of course that means much dough needs to be made to acquire the proper outcome. 

 

The diet in my home, since I am the cook, is sybaritic. There is no meat, poultry, or fish. Butter is used sparingly replaced by a fruity, spicy extra virgin olive oil sourced from a beautiful hillside above Fiesole near Florence Italy. There is moderate use of salt and spices. White wine with dinner is necessary but it takes two days to finish a bottle.

 

This discipline began to break down. I found myself buying butter, not to mention eggs, at a rate unheard of in the near past. I became anxious as the shelves of the local grocery became sparser and sparser. The lack of toilet paper worried me less than the empty flour shelf. 

 

One treat after another was produced, all flaky and sweet and delicious. There were a few mistakes but they were learned by and the trend to richer foods did not abate. 

 

Then one evening with back-to-back Julia and Jacques tutorials on soufflés the zenith was reached. I should have seen it coming but my mind was cloudy with butterfat. The next morning with recipes flying out of the printer and post-it note tabs protruding from multiple cookbooks a plan was hatched. Tonight a simple but elegant cheese soufflé would be served for dinner. 

 

Eggs are not a part of my usual repertoire. I do understand their utility and the fascinating chemistry behind it. What I don’t like is messing with them. I will hold my nose on occasion to make a frittata with left over pasta and vegetables but I am usually chastised for not using enough of them. 

 

A soufflé is a dish whose very structure demands eggs. I failed to realize that I had succumbed to the allure of heavy cream, organic eggs, fresh creamery butter, and fine white flour. I had succumbed to the tyrants of technique and outcomes. 

 

About this time, my left foot, toes to be exact, began to ache. Years ago after a long hike the soreness did not fade away, and I asked the x-ray tech in my office to snap an x-ray. Sure enough, in plain sight the second toe showed signs of arthritis. I was in my late fifties and if this was the worst of it, I considered myself lucky. 

 

So, when my foot started to ache I chalked it up to the osteoarthritic joints. I thought my shoes were too tight and changed to a more broken in pair for daily wear. Then I decided that using the exercise bike in the basement was the aggravating agent and I cut back to every other day. Finally as I lay down to sleep the weigh of the bed sheet seemed excessive.

 

I determined that first thing in the morning I would take a full history and perform an exam. I would look at my foot, something I had feigned to do. There, on this nearly forty years a vegetarian’s left foot was reddish swelling across the metatarsals.

 

This could not be, but it was – gout! How many times had I diagnosis this in other poor souls, and ordained the value of a low fat and a low protein diet. Denied them beer and dairy. How many times had I inwardly smirked while writing a prescription for a powerful anti-inflammatory, and ordered a test for uric acid blood levels. The memories came flooding back.  

 

And though doctors that treat themselves have fools for patients, there was no refuting this. I searched the medicine cabinet for a drug other than Tylenol and in the corner, hiding behind a large bottle of ignored multivitamins, was a small plastic container of ibuprofen.

 I popped two rust colored pills into my mouth, walked into the kitchen, and extolled on the value of brown rice and vegetables. My behavior had bested me, to say nothing of the soufflé! 

July 2020

Excuses

For someone who has been involved in Japanese culture for many years, I am woefully deficient in Japanese language skills. There is no excuse; nonetheless, I will spend the next few paragraphs making them.

My parents were fluent in Italian. They decided not to hinder their children’s education by confusing them with another language. And as most readers of this understand, it had to do with assimilation into mainstream American culture. They watched their families struggle to fit in, and were determined not to let it happen to their children.

Other than Italian, it was in high school that I was confronted by another language. This time it was Spanish. I still remember the first three sentences in the textbook. That is as far as I progressed. When I think back, in all likelihood I passed the class due to social promotion more than academic achievement.

My father, a kind soul, was diagnosed with dyslexia at the ripe old age of sixty five. And to continue with my excuses, I think I inherited a touch of it. My academic career was long and in the end successful, but I felt like I put in twice the hours as the next person to get to the same place.

Now with that said, I can get to the reason for this commentary, shakuhachi music notation. Yes, that’s correct. Can I think of a more riveting topic you ask, and I am prone to agree but read on.

Many will be familiar with guitar tablature, written for guitarist that do not sight read the various dots, lines, and other squiggly symbols that make up western music notation. Tablature shows where to place fingers on the fret board, and which strings to pluck or strum. It is a visual representation of a guitar’s playing surface. Many legendary jazz and rock guitarist cannot read music and so rely on memory, intuition, tablature, and pure talent to play.

The shakuhachi also has tablature. It uses the iconography of katakana and adds its own set of squiggly lines. The music is written vertically, and read from right to left. Each Ro, Tsu, Re, Chi, Ri denotes a note and the specific fingering to play it, but it is more complicated than that.

Shakuhachi is a pentatonic (5 note) folk instrument that developed a chromatic (12 note) repertoire. Covering ¼ to 1/2 of one or several of the five holes, and altering the angle and the speed of the air blown into its peculiar mouthpiece accomplish it.

To make matters more complex, a shakuhachi is a piece of bamboo harvested from a grove, and each varies as only a natural substance can. Modern shakuhachi makers go to great lengths to standardize their creations. But there is a tradition of rough sounding flutes played with great aplomb. The sound they produce may lack the sophistication of the newer flutes but in the right hands is evocative.

To hear a flutist blow one flawless note after another in contrast to another’s wild abandon listen on YouTube to Rodrigo Rodriguez and Watazumi Doso Roshi respectively. Their uncompromised commitment to each note is overwhelming.

Music is intangible. It is beyond a score written with dots on five lines or written in katakana right to left. Practice is of course important for without technique the rest is futile. For me though the score is a place to start, and as with chanoyu a great teacher is a necessity.

So, I humbly ask if mastering Ro, Tsu, Re, Chi, Ri may excuse me from fumbling over the simplest Japanese phrase and pronunciation, even after all these decades.

June 2020

Urgency

Over the years that I have been studying chanoyu, I have seen several gyotei sensei make tea. Gyotei sensei are the professors of tea. They spend a lifetime in study, and pass down their knowledge to the tea community.

I am amazed at how matter of fact they are. By this, I mean they simply make tea. There is no flourish, no anticipatory movements, no fussing around, they just make a bowl of tea. If some tea spills, they clean it up. If there is a disruption to the flow, they keep going.

When their guest has drunk, they efficiently clean up and move on to the next task. This lack of pretension is what attracts my attention. When I make tea, I anticipate the next step, and because of this, whatever I am doing at the moment suffers.

I have thought about this for many hours, and not only in terms of chanoyu. In daily life, this quandary also comes up. Why does work not go smoothly; why is it hard to sound a high E, or to play a simple blues riff, why, why, why.

On occasion, without warning I begin and end chanoyu without much contemplation. This is dumbfounding. Somehow, my mind let it happen without informing me. It is as if I was given an amnestic drug at the beginning, so I cannot go back and evaluate the process. I have to accept that what is done is done, never to be repeated.

Still it is odd to have the subconscious take over, after all aren’t I supposed to be in charge!

In D.T. Suzuki’s Zen Buddhism, there is an interminable discussion of “no mind” or “no thought”. The circular dialog between teacher and student goes on for pages. It reminds me of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” comedy routine.

Suzuki’s essays were written between 1949 and 1955. I first read them during my senior year of high school. The book cost $1.95 back then, which should give a clue as to the year I first encountered it. I have returned to these pages many times. I know this because the pages are marked with asterisks, underlines, and boxes surrounding particularly confusing phrases.

It is maddening not to have intuited what is obviously an important question for me: how do I simply let go and be. There is a sense of urgency as I stand up, and start walking towards my library to search for another book in hope that it has the answer. Halfway to the bookcase, I turn back; my intellect is not going to help.

The gyotei sensei’s seamless tea may be the best answer to the question. And, at least for me, continuing to heat water to make a bowl of tea may be the best solution.

May 2020

Ventilators

A ventilator is a complicated and intimidating device. There is a reason that there are only a few critical care specialists in the world. They are also the only contraptions that have a chance of saving an acutely ill respiratory compromised patient.

I dreaded the time spent in the ICU during my medical training. As a student, the management of respiratory compromised patients perplexed me. The doctors, and by proxy the residents and fellows that worked under them, seemed to protect their knowledge in a metaphysical way.

On rounds they did not teach but pronounced the dictums of acid-base balance, of patients being “wet” or “dry”, of respiratory rates and tidal volumes and of FIO2’s. And this was done while facing a device that looked similar to a MOOG synthesizer with dials and knobs, with flashing lights and toggle switches. I had to repeatedly remind myself that to the right or left of this hissing throbbing device there was a patient struggling for their life.

The compelling thing about medical training is that I knew, eventually, I would be in a position to make decisions regarding the myriad of things I was exposed to in the first four years of training. This did not always hold true but I could not discount the fact that it might be true. Because of this, I strove in the time allotted to each specialty to learn as much as I could to be as prepared as possible.

In this regard, ventilators hold a special place in my memory as an intern. The time came early one morning when the resident running the ICU decided he was desperate to sleep after being awake for several days. I was briefed on the future needs, as best as he could assert them, of the patients inhabiting every bed in the ICU. And then he left.

I stood there as if naked amidst the quiet chaos of the ICU, and thought that after a decade of intense study I was a complete fraud. That I had learned nothing of value in that time to help me help this cadre of patients survive and flourish. Of course, when in a situation such as this it is best to contemplate these thoughts inwardly and not to demonstrably breakdown.

I turned and surveyed the room. I noted the clock on the wall, only 5 hours left before rounds started. I said to myself, with the help of the superb nursing and respiratory tech staff, I could do this. I walked to each room, examined each patient, and studied their chart. If I had questions, I sought out the assigned nurse to discuss their patient’s care.

At first time passed glacially, but then events began to unfold and decisions were made. Before I knew it, I felt the resident rest his hand on my shoulder. When I finished my report, he thanked me. It was the last day I ever had responsibility in an ICU. I moved on to my next rotation, and never looked back except in a nightmare or two over the years.

April 2020

Chatter

It is mid March, and I am sitting in my mother-in-law’s backyard. Her yard happens to be in Sumter, South Carolina, and it is early spring here. The camellias have recently shed their blooms and now the azaleas follow with shear magenta flowers that have a slight violet trim. Well defined dark rich green leaves surround the ephemeral flowers.

Each morning when I walk out the back door onto the deck I find it covered with a fine yellow dust. In fact, everything is covered with the dust that emanates from the multitude of budding trees.

The backyard is not a quiet place. There is the sound of car tires and loud accelerating diesel pickup trucks, but the sounds that grab my attention emanate from several pair of birds.

This being a smallish town and me being away from home, there is not much to do. So, I unpack my binoculars, find the bird identification book I gifted to my mother-in-law, and begin the frustrating attempt to identify the noisy avian.

The different birds seem to trade off in the calling for a mate. The most obvious birds are the cardinals. They have beautiful clear tones that occasionally end in a nasal slur, and they seem to have a more varied vocabulary then the cardinals that hang out in my Chicago backyard.

The closest tree has a high pitched chirping coming out from amongst the leaves. There are warblers about the size of the leaves and of a similar shade but duskier. For me at least, warblers have been the most difficult birds to identify. They pass through quickly, snapping up wayward insects on the fly.

Suddenly, I spot a large dark silhouette high against the bright cloudy sky. Its thick wings contrast with a blunt tail. It must be a hawk. It is another bird I fail to identify.

The cardinals finally quiet and another equally loud couple takes over the aural landscape. I begin to search. It takes a bit of time. The sounds are echoing from different angles. But I have been a birdwatcher since I was a teenager so I know to calm my breathing and wait.

I take the binoculars from my eyes and scan the foliage for movement. Then, two Carolina wrens reward me. They are the largest of their species. There is a compelling give and take between them. It keeps me watching despite my aching arms, and reminds me of the call and response between jazz saxophonists and it goes on for about as long.

The wind picks up and even though the sun peeks through the clouds, it starts to drizzle. The neighborhood begins to quiet and I start to pack my belongings. After a February sequestered in a Chicago bungalow and with COVID-19 cutting off other venues of distraction, I am loath to go back into the house.

Wait! There is a Baltimore oriole or is it an orchard oriole, but it has a rapid chatter, so it is probably the Baltimore. And now the cardinal has started up again in the tree right above my head.

I guess a few raindrops never ruined anyone’s day!

March 2020

Digital

The world has become digital. I attempt to keep up but I am running out of steam. Well, not really steam but interest. I remember adopting email, and then I remember the moment my beloved receptionist compelled me to text. Its efficiency surprised me.

I signed up on Twitter because of the hullabaloo but quickly lost focus. I did not understand why I should give a flying you know what about the barrage of 150 words that endlessly occupied my phone. And due to my litigated-against profession, Facebook was never an option.

When the hospital and the physician group began to push email down my throat, I politely agreed and neglected to look at it. I still remember a medical student looking in horror over my shoulder at the number of emails never opened. He was tasked with erasing them.

Did I miss something important, maybe? My goal was to provide the best care I could, and I think on a one to one basis I did that. It is not an easy thing to do. Every patient encounter is bespoke. I like that word. It, in a Queen’s English kind of way, provokes a gravitas that “custom” fails to do.

The digital revolution forced me to do an audit of my mental capacity: to inventory the memory and the processing power available to my aging mind. I determined the limits, and then decided what was necessary and left the other behind.

I envisioned practicing to a ripe old age. Experience in many ways supplants vigor. The longer I practiced the more efficient I became. In training, we would be confronted by wizen old doctors who could tell a patient’s entire history by watching them walk into the room. I was becoming one of these soothsayers.

This is part of the craft and not a saintly power bestowed on only a few. It requires decades of attention to detail, careful history taking and examination, and then the ability to formulate a proper note.

The act of writing allows the mind to catch up with the data stream. It allows for the split seconds needed to devise a plan. And it stores much of the information gained in long term memory, so it can be drawn upon later.

Of course, the reader can probably see where I am going with this. See why I abandoned my calling younger than I had anticipated, and went off to invest the energy left to me onto other areas of interest. A digital world I could not ignore finally caught up with me in the form of the electronic medical record.

I knew I was in trouble during the first of two two-hour lessons delivered by the provider of the software. Four hours of disjointed instruction by trainers, who truly could not understand that they were replacing a system developed over hundreds of years with a wholly insufficient and cumbersome digital equivalent.

But strike that last word. There is not a thing equivalent to several blank pieces of paper and a trained mind. Simple things turned complex and complex things were ignored. The patient encounter designed to be helpful, compassionate, and believe-it-or-not fun, turned ugly.

I spent six years in strident effort trying to perfect a thing that I knew after the first several weeks of use was hopeless. The digital world had bested me. I gave up. It took years to not feel guilty about the decision. And I suppose by writing this I am admitting to myself that I am not yet over it.

What prompted this thought process was the Iowa caucus debacle. In a purely selfish way, I take solace in the apps failure to count a few votes in a state with less population than Chicago. It looks like the collective consciousness of the country has many of the same issues with digital that I have.

But I am not good at wallowing, so I will continue to download the next best weather app and to post my bread baking victories on Instagram. That is, at least until my neuronal network ceases to connect!

February 2020

Almost

When I began to play the shakuhachi every series of notes went allegretto, despite the expected tempo. I could not keep up: my head spinning with futile attempts to suck in oxygen. A half decade into concerted study, the notes are beginning to unfold in slow motion.

Honkyoku, the shakuhachi’s classic music, does not have a specific time signature. It is timeless and often seems to begin as it ends. Small dashes and indeterminate lines droop from each note to provide a sense of the rhythm, but typically, the phrasing is passed down from teacher to student generation after generation.

I think of the music as the forest breathing. And if I am being romantic about it, this is interspersed with the devotional chants of Buddhist nuns, monks, and priests. A honkyoku piece reflects the interplay between nature and the player, if that distinction can be made.

That the quality of the sound has no bearing in this is hard to grasp. I struggle for the correct timbre and cadence knowing that if I had a truthful spirit the notes would be superfluous.

I often relate a work to a season of the year, even if there is no such indication. Winter is pianissimo, until a blizzard blows in and shatters the silence.

Spring is allegro molto vivace. It goes from crescendo to decrescendo as the nestlings are fledged.

Summer’s moderato ushers in with a steady drumbeat of activities only to be broken by tympanic summer squalls that pass quickly.

Fall is nature in retreat. Unlike spring, the pace is not frantic but largo. The earth is changing again, this time reluctantly.

With a repertory that can be counted on one hand, none are mastered. A few brief honkyoku tolerate my complete attention. Others linger on and challenge my competency.

I begin with a plan and great expectations, then midstream they are forgotten. Notes squeal then burrow deep. Fingers refuse to conform. Time is too short or too long. Breath runs out and leaves unexpected gaps.

For all that, after the last note it is difficult to disengage the mouthpiece from my lips: the music still beckons. And though the echo has faded, the sound continues.

Slowly my heartbeat fills the void, and it feels as if I am about to blow into the shakuhachi again for the first time. This is frustrating and thrilling at the same time. To know some forty years ago, what I know now would be joyous.

But then, now I can keep up with the notes . . . almost!

January 2020

Humans

These days when the newest wiz kid app developer or start up billionaire is interviewed, and the use of their product is questioned, they respond by stating that it is uniquely designed for humans. This takes me aback. I begin to wonder whom else would it be designed for.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) must be further along than I realize. Are these applications designed to be used by modern day R2-D2’s. I comprehend that my concept of robots, with or without AI, is colored by the black and white images I saw on TV when I was an impressionable youth.

I suppose I need an up-to-date definition of what a robot is. Can I equate AI with robots, are they one in the same; do robots have to have an arm to manipulate the world or can they do it by manipulating our minds to do their bidding.

AI, at least in my imagination, inhabits faceless servers, and is imbedded in the cloud and on our phones. It navigates through the Internet’s neural network, and it see’s through those odd looking goggles where people experience the virtual world while wandering around sparse rooms as molecules do in Brownian motion.

Though I often feel like a Luddite, I have been part of the internet since before there was an Internet. In the mid 1970’s, Southern Illinois University’s library was my chosen spot to study. I would leave the apartment after dinner and cross a gravel parking lot; walk up and over the train tracks (careful not to be run down by an errant freight train) to the Greek fast food joint for a cup of their bitter coffee.

This cup would be sneaked into the library where I set up shop and sipped while I studied anatomy, chemistry, and higher math. At about nine, my limit for absorption was reached, and I would head for the basement lab that contained odd neon screens with a resolution of about four dots per square inch. Here resided PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations): a pre-internet network developed at the University of Illinois.

A reservation was required to use the terminals and I always scheduled a 45 minute session. This was a reward to motivate my diligent study until the library closed at 11:30pm. If I remember, the programs offered were geared toward higher education, but it had other functions that we now equate with the Internet.

I most often used the learn-to-type tutorial. I never learned to type other than the laughable hunt and peck that I write these commentaries with, but I did get a sense that there was a wider computer based world out there.

My next interaction with the web was from the editors of the Whole Earth Catalog. In the far off fantasy land of California there were enlightened individuals who communicated about intriguing things on a network that was the progenitor of user groups and chat rooms.

I longed to be part of that world but never managed to ingratiate myself. I considered myself too ordinary to be of interest, though in reality I lacked the motivation to investigate how to connect. Maybe I thought it would entail too much typing.

In those years, when I had some free time I opted to take long walks in the woods and spy on birds rather than lock myself in a room with a screen. Remember those days!

Back then the assumption was that these electronic innovations were to be used by Homo sapiens. I am not sure that this is true any longer. Each day brings news of ways to replace humans. The bank teller is replaced by an ATM. Stores are now busy training us to check out and bag our own goods.

Automobiles are so capable of driving in rush hour that their drivers are free to nap at the wheel. And then there are the drones, which will soon deliver packages and transport us above roads crowded by automatous delivery trucks.

The world moves on whether we like it or not. I watched my parents struggle for years to program a VCR. I like to think that I am better equipped to manage change but I also realize that I have lost the ability to record and play back video images.

For my part, if I can quickly get the latest app to work I may be interested, but if not I am perfectly happy to do without it. There is always the shakuhachi to practice, a wood working project to finish, or a couple of YouTube videos to watch. And I think I will try to stay awake while driving.

After all, I am proud to be human; it must be better than being a nematode. But then a nematode does not need to update its software or delete thousands of emails!

December 2019

Vortex

Winter arrived early. The polar vortex (perhaps it should be capitalized), which in most years is reserved for January and February, showed its ugly face this November. In the past, the wind that carries the brittle polar air would simply appear without being named, but no longer. The branding of each storm coincides with the drama that the 24 hour news cycle and the insatiable social networks demand.

Nonetheless, the cold is real, and requires an expertise in layering. The drawers that hold the appropriate garments must be searched through and cataloged after a spring-summer-fall of neglect: long sleeved flannel undershirts, tight fitting long johns, heavy pants and shirts, gloves, hats, down and/or wool vest and coats, and boots with knuckled soles are retrieved.

The clothes are invested with a lifetime of hard won experience, knowledge, and money. To find a suitable combination any thought of fashion is forgotten. Practicality rules the day or at least what is left of the day as winter progresses.

The earth’s wobble tilts the planet in such a way that the sun’s warming rays aimed at the north ricochet back into the absolute cold of space. Southern climes are sought for relief, but this realization can prove difficult. The vagaries of the jet stream threaten Florida as well as Chicago. It requires optimism to plan a winter respite months ahead. It is a gamble to drive south, attempt to tan, and then return home unscathed.

To add to the chaos, once a storm is named it invests the populace with mania. Grocery store shelves are emptied, classes are canceled, snow blowers are prepped, and we are asked to check in on the vulnerable.

I am indebted to R. H. Blyth and to his four volumes simply called, Haiku. Each season I take the appropriate volume from its reverential space on the bookshelf and read his commentary. The haiku are interspersed with quotations from Western poets and writers.

Though I have had these books since my early twenties I have never
fully read them. They act as a reference for how to perceive the world, more encyclopedic than novelistic. Japan is an animistic nation, thus haiku poetry is supremely tailored to represent it. For the most part Blyth indexes the poems in a natural order. Birds and beasts, trees and flowers, sky and elements are some of the topics.

I have spent much of my life on the water and much of that on Lake Michigan, so the wind plays large in my perception of nature. Haiku, in a mere 17 syllables, encapsulates the reality of the wind.

Buson writes: The winter storm, The voice of the rushing water, Torn by the rocks. I can see it, I can feel the spray on my face, and I am relieved to be lounging on a comfortable chair in a warm home, and not out fighting the tempest.

Basho on the other hand is not as abstract as Buson. He writes: The tempest is blowing: Someone’s painfully swollen face. Now this describes a winter in our beloved windy city. This is raw and visceral, and even though I am comfortable now, within the poem’s few words, an inescapable truth lies. That ultimately there is no comfort.

I wonder if a warm tropical breeze was bathing me, would I still be as dire. Would a few swaying palm trees uplift my worldview, temporarily I suppose.

A Polar Vortex (capitalize now!), or its equivalent is bound to be lurking out there somewhere. I will be thinking of this when I try to escape from its clutches this February, no matter the inescapable truth.

November 2019

Realization

In the 1980’s, I began my study of chanoyu, the tea ceremony. I am a native of Chicago who after spending many years away for schooling erroneously thought I was through with the Windy City. Thus, for my first job I sought out a position in a beautiful lakeside town in Wisconsin. It did not take long to realize I had made a mistake.

The mistake had nothing to do with the amiable people of this small town but with self perception. Soon I was driving to the larger city up the coast for East Indian music concerts and Middle Eastern food. There were authentic Italian bakeries and delicatessens that needed visiting.

Wander lust set in quickly. Next, I found myself in Chicago reconnecting with friends I had abandoned in my quest for higher education. They were gracious in welcoming me back into the fold.

On one trip “home” I picked up a brochure for adult education at the Latin School. One of the listings was for a four weekend seminar in the tea ceremony. I quickly signed up and found myself driving back to Chicago after office hours to attend the class. It was taught by an imposing man and a diminutive woman both in kimono.

It was obvious from the start that she was in charge. The woman, my future teacher, ran the roost but due to limited English needed a translator. The class started with the basics: how to fold a fukusa, how to handle a chawan, an explanation of matcha and the technique of using a chasen. There was a short dissertation of the history of chado, and then we were all invited to take the chasen in hand and make our partner a bowl of tea.

Years later in medical school where the aphorism “See one, do one, teach one” is paramount, I looked back and recognized the style of my first teacher who was a distinguished internal medicine doctor. Six months later, I took the class again and then to my surprise was asked to take lessons formally.

The year was 1985 and I am still at it. If I am truthful, I have gained a level of competency but nowhere commensurate with the time spent in study. It is as if the more I study the wider the tea world becomes. It is infinite.

That revelation changed frustration into the comforting thought that chanoyu will be forever fascinating. I will never be bored with the process, the history, the arts and crafts, and thus I will never need to move on to another endeavor to satisfy my curiosity. And that is the realization, my realization at least.

October 2019

Senioring

The backs of cars are festooned with many clues as to the type of people that inhabit them. There are political affiliations, union memberships; you can see where most of the money that should have gone in the retirement account went instead to a university. The type of dog that is riding shotgun, and how many family members are shuttled around by mom in the mini van is often evident.

There is on occasion a quirky haiku-like statement about how we are going to hell in a hand basket. And often I am left feeling inadequate because my other car isn’t a Corvette.

I miss the Grateful Dead’s skeletons and bears. Where have all the deadheads gone? And I have not seen the elitist Colorado’s green Native sticker for a while; maybe they have become more inclusive.

The best adherents to bumper sticker culture have to be the drivers of old VW camper vans. The backs of their vehicles, including the window, are covered with every destination in their carefree lives.

I have never participated in this, though I have come close. Stickers collect in the back seat waiting to be affixed but grow old and tattered, and are eventually thrown out. But I think my time is coming.

Not that I want to make a political statement, or advertise a lifestyle. I have no grandchildren that are going to Harvard or Yale, and there are no dogs or exotic cars that the world needs to know about. What I propose to post is similar to the “New Driver, Please be Patient, or “Baby on Board, Please don’t drive me off the road” genre of stickers.

I must have crossed over an imaginary line recently. My neck must have gotten spindlier, my hair sparser and greyer, I must be slumping in my seat or listening to talk and classical radio more. Something has changed that motivates drivers in my rear view mirror to help me along by blaring their horns.

Maybe I am preventing them from getting to the next stoplight quicker, or from making that forbidden right turn on red. I certainly am slowing the progress of every plumber’s van, not that they ever get to my house on time.

Okay, I am comfortable that my time has come to burden the vehicle behind me with guilt by announcing, “Senior On Board, Please Give Me A Break”, or “Senior On Board, What’s The Hurry”, or maybe “Senior On Board, Where The Hell Are You Going Anyway”.

Though when I mention this plan, friends caution that it will make me increasingly vulnerable to the scofflaws that call our streets home, and it will give these hurried drivers more glee in cutting me off the next opportunity they get.

On occasion, I have fun at a stoplight. The unremarkable white Honda I pilot, when dropped into sport mode, will translate its 260 HP to the front wheels in dramatic fashion. I know it is wrong, but when the towering pickup truck that has been tailgating me pulls to my right, I cannot help but accelerate just for a moment. It alters the whole dynamic.

It is juvenile, as it would also be to put the above stickers on my bumper. In the end, better to remain anonymous and keep driving . . . . like an old man!

September, 2019

Bizarre

One morning this first week of August, I was listening to Nino Rota’s film music. It was soothing in an odd way. If you are unfamiliar with him, go to YouTube and listen to the music, and then watch the movies. He is famous for writing the scores for The Godfather and for the eccentric Italian director Federico Fellini’s movies. If you have never watched any of these, you are in for a treat.

It is Italian music at its finest, an offbeat mix of serious and comical, even farcical. It reflects the bizarre world the Italians found themselves in during the 50’s and 60’s: a time not far from the devastation of WWII.

This music is a perfect background for the world we find ourselves in; no, more the world we are trapped in. The country is barely recognizable. Our worst tendencies are sanctioned to retain power at any cost.

America has become a country that sits back and lets its young men slaughter families, friends, and children for no other reason than pure misguided hate. And to make the unthinkable even stranger, we not only continue to encourage them but also to arm them.

Fellini’s films are about the absurd. They are extreme depictions of life that seem unreal at first viewing. But after some thought the tangible world make his films tame.

In my profession, there was the constant threat of malpractice. We armed ourselves with high value insurance and even higher value preventative measures. Of course, the best approach is to strive to do the best job possible: to ignore the threat, and practice responsibly and treat everyone with respect.

I find this lacking in our leaders. They have put the country at risk by ignorance at best and malice at worse.

In my 66 years, the country has been through traumatic events: unjust wars, assassinations, riots, massive economic fraud, homeland attack, political suppression and maleficence, and environmental carnage. A short search of Wikipedia will bring up the specifics. Somehow, this feels different.

Where there was hope and enthusiasm, it seems crushed under a mass of electronic media. Other than reading an opinion piece or watching Walter Cronkite on television, I was left to my own thoughts. Ideas simmered for hours or days. Conclusions were reached, not forced by a millisecond turnaround time.

There was no stress to broadcast opinions because no one particularly cared. Friends reinforced each other, and families did what families always do (or did), stuck together despite differences.

When I tried to write a coherent conclusion to this commentary, I could not. To use logic to ferret out a solution does not seem possible. Of course, we should try but not be surprised if the effort is futile. Now that is bizarre.

August, 2019

Once

Today was one of those days; up at 5:30, a quick breakfast then the pre-cruise inspection. There was 75’ of anchor chain laid out between Cross and Mink Islands, and it needed the mud hosed off most of the chain before our scheduled departure at 6:45.

I said it was one of those days, so the reason for the 6:45 departure was to arrive at the Quoddy Narrows at the last vestige of Maine in time to reach the Lubec Narrows Bridge at 10:18. And the reason for this was (for once) to try to cross from the Atlantic Ocean to the Passamaquoddy Bay at High Slack tide when the water would be calm.

If we reached it at the proper time then the current under the bridge will be minimal. If not then it makes for a hair-raising experience, as the entire bay begins to lower itself by twenty feet and much of its water passes under this bridge.

To reach the bridge at Hugh Slack tide is the theory, alas, we have yet to succeed coordinating the variables involved. Some of these include integrating the low and high slack currents with the timing of low and high tide. Another is the time zone: Eastern Daylight and Atlantic Daylight time, which here exists directly across from each other. And then there is the lack of data concerning the current at the Lubec Narrows. All these make timing the transit difficult to pin down. So far, we have been off by plus or minus an hour.

The timing error becomes apparent as Carrie Rose is being sucked through (if it is low to high tide), or struggles to transit the two bridge pylons of the Lubec Bridge (if it is high to low tide). Of course, it is not quite that simple. There are strong eddies above and below the bridge.

If there is one thing I know about Carrie Rose, if I fully engage the throttle she will plant her stern deep into the water and go straight. I have only had to do this a few times, most notably on the New Jersey coast and now in northernmost Maine.

At this point in my boating career I should know I better, but as we say in the Tea Ceremony: One meeting, one time. Each attempt is unique. I should end this tale now but there is more. Please feel free to stop reading at any time. You will not hurt my feelings.

As I mentioned above, we left Cross Island in Maine early this morning. A horrendous dream awoke me and I got up to look around. The entire anchorage was shrouded in fog. I could barely see the glow from Sir Tugely Blue’s anchor light. I crawled back into bed and I awoke at 5:30.

The surrounding fog was gone, but this was nature being deceitful. It did not take long for the fog to enveloped us once out onto the Atlantic. To add to the fog there was squall after squall. Their only benefit being to temporarily blow the fog away.

More events took place: whirlpools, a pissed off (I did inadvertently yelled at him) hulk-like Canadian border patrol agent, and more cold rain and fog.

Now on our mooring, the rain has stopped, the winds have calmed, and the cloud ceiling has risen. There may even be a sunset, and tomorrow it is predicted to be sunny and in the 70’s. All is well.

Oh, did I forget to mention that the water hose popped off the hot water heater and sprayed 50 gallons of water over the engine room (an easy fix if you can believe it) as we approached the Narrows. I think it is time to have a glass of wine, a bite to eat, and go to bed!

July 2019

Forethought

Every tea/chanoyu event engenders much forethought. Most of the groups that request a tea ceremony demonstration are surprised at the amount of equipment needed to perform the task properly. And they are also surprised to see the number of kimono clad women and men that deliver, unpack, assemble, use the various objects, and then reverse the process.

Along with the equipment is the creation of a mizuya (kitchen). One of the principles of chanoyu is purity, and during tea, the host ceremonially purifies the utensils. But before that, hidden away from the guest in the mizuya, the utensils are cleansed and prepared for use.

Chanoyu is not a preordained event. Each time tea is prepared it is unique. I believe that that is one of the reasons why chanoyu is so engrossing. Many factors are considered when designing (if that is the appropriate word) each event. The season, the availability of tea ware, the level of formality, the space that tea is to be made in, the practitioners level of expertise, all these and more must be considered.

And though we draw upon our training and experiences, another tenet of chanoyu is ichigo, ichie (one time, one meeting). It belies us to consider this presentation of chanoyu as a one and only. In my medical practice, when asked to provide an opinion, diagnosis or medication sight unseen, I would respond that each patient is a custom one off encounter, and in my experience the simpler the problem was made out to be, the more complicated it was.

The lesson learned is never to be complacent. Never to take anything for granted. Plan, plan, plan, and then review the plan. Despite my excellent chanoyu training, I must remind myself of the above. This may be because I know that my teachers will not allow themselves or their students to strive for anything except perfection.

Of course, this striving for perfection is passed down from above. My visits to the Urasenke Headquarters in Kyoto have been a mixture of awe and dread. It is not fear of their reproach, for they are gracious and accommodating, but fear of my insufficiencies.

Alas, the only way forward is to persevere. Riyku, the founder of chado (the way of tea), stated it this way: To become adept at something requires liking it, adroitness, and the accumulation of training. It is the person with all these three who will realize mastery. (Translated by Gretchen Mittwer)

So, the next time you watch the sublime tea ceremony performed, think of the forethought that the scurrying group of kimonos before you put into the planning and implementation. It will make the experience more fulfilling.

June 2019

Clutter

To get as far out of earshot I practice the shakuhachi at the front of the house. I can close a few doors to lessen the sound permeating into the back room where the ever patient Charlotte sits, watching the latest Amazon Prime serial. We have reached a compromise on location as the recent piece I have been practicing has the highest notes possible to be played on this 22” piece of thick bamboo.

In a virtuoso’s hands, these notes would not need volumes of air to reach their peak, but then I am not a virtuoso. The tuner does not lie; I can produce the proper pitch at the sacrifice of increased volume.

The shakuhachi’s five basic notes have simple one syllable names: Ro, Tsu, Re, Chi, and Ri. They are notated in katakana, and when first practicing a tune the notes are sung rather than played.

With other pitches, especially in the third octave, the names become complicated and defy song. It has taken 40 years for me to sound them: Go-No-Ha, San-No-Ha, Yon-No-Ha, or D, D#, and E.

There are others a bit lower on the scale but these three have been fleeting. When I manage to play the note properly, I try to replicate what I have just done. Where was my tongue, how were my lips pursed, what angle was the flute in relation to my mouth, how much air was I forcing into the flute, the list goes on.

Breath is fleeting as well. It should be deep and abdominal, a steady stream of powerful air. But mostly it comes from my upper chest. Halfway into each measure, when it is too late, I remember that this breath should be deep and abdominal. The final notes struggle to survive.

When I sit at my makeshift desk where I practice, and look west into the front and dining rooms, I see clutter. It is not clutter in the negative sense. Most of the objects have a cherished history and their place, but there are still an awful lot of them.

Closest to me there are cigar box guitars and several bamboo komuso figurines. The books and dolls, various wooden and metal objet d’art; paintings and woodblock prints; there is a stereo cabinet with CDs and records, and speakers the size of large picnic ice coolers.

The dining room has the prerequisite table and chairs with the addition of a small shrine to the shakuhachi and chado gods. The walls are cover with home generated prints and watercolors. There is my mother’s maple hope chest and Charlotte’s grandmothers white marble topped dresser, along with a smattering of family and friend's photographs.

The entirety is dusted twice a month on Tuesday, so we cannot be accused of slovenliness. Most of the clutter has been circling the sun along with us for decades. My sister does not have this predilection. She regularly without sympathy redefines her space. In fact, quite a few of the pieces, both large and small, once inhabited her home.

There are moments when I wish it was all gone, and my life was as clean and spare as the furniture ads I see in the Sunday New York Times Style magazine. The people in the ads are as sleek as their surrounds, and I imagine that they have figured out how not to carry any baggage, both spiritual and material, around with them.

Then I relax and realize it is never going to happen. I pity my nephews for somehow I imagine they are going to have to deal with the clutter. But maybe they will wash their hands of it and call 1-800-GOTJUNK . . . not a bad idea.

I turn back to the score. It is time to make some noise. Time to send a few high pitched notes out to interact with the stuff that clutters my life.

May 2019

Resourceful

I have always enjoyed making things, all kinds of things. When I was a kid I enjoyed taking things apart, the problem was, I was not skilled at putting them back together again. My parents were tolerant of this proclivity of mine. In fact, I think my father encouraged it. I never remember him getting mad, even when I took grandpa’s fancy pocket watch apart and ruined it.

That watch still exists. I have lugged it around with me since I first destroyed it. Whenever I unearth it from some drawer or box I have hidden it in, I cannot help but feel guilt. It is a constant reminder of the years it took me to become resourceful enough not only to disassemble, but also to reassemble.

One of the frustrations of practicing chanoyu in America is the lack of appropriate utensils. Granted the Internet has made this less of an issue, but still there are things that are not readily available. I have spent my adult life searching art and craft fairs, and antique and consignment shops for that rare find, a suitable western piece that will work for tea.

Over many years of study, I have developed a sense of what foreign object will work in tea’s highly stratified world. My home is littered with objects that do not make the final step to being useful in the making of tea. Japan has spent close to a millennium defining and refining these objects, so why do I think I will find one willy-nilly while wandering around a crafts fair.

It has happened: a beautiful white tea bowl found in Door County, Wisconsin, and another bowl stumbled upon in a northern Maine coffee shop. But these are the outliers. Other objects I have made, partially out of a sense of frustration but also out of curiosity and a need to be hands on in my personal tea ethos.

This pursuit of a personal identification with the material world of tea is not always met with approval. Tea is a conservative practice in the way that period musicians only use instruments appropriate to that time; no Switched On Bach for them. And so, it is thus with tea.

Change is not bottom up but top down. It is not the purview of the general membership but the responsibility of the few. This is with good reason. As with most earthly constructs, chanoyu is a fragile thing. Change has ramifications, mostly unanticipated. Tea’s oeuvre is firmly set.

That said I have a library of tea books and a basement of tools, neither of which I can ignore. Once I get a design in my head, the above resources are put to work, and sometimes, if I am lucky a useable piece is constructed. Of course, this is an unorthodox approach.

In the book, The Spirit Of Tea, the then Grand Tea Master Sen Soshitsu XV touches on this subject in the chapter titled Selecting. I have read its twelve lines many times to try to understand where the boundaries between seriousness and frivolity lie. In this, I have been unsuccessful.

There are many ways to truth: scholarship, spirituality, physical practice, and the disciplines of arts and crafts. To be successful in the selection, or the design and building of tea utensils requires resourcefulness. But how to keep the ego out of it, well, chado, the way of tea excels at that.

April 2019

Prep

It is winter and I am retired. That means, for the most part, I do not need to leave the house unless I want to. There is comfort in this. It also means that I have the time to prep myself and the house for the onslaught of freezing winds, snow, and ice.

This winter (2019) has had a few particularly nasty days. I did not grow up with the concept of wind chill, so I tend to discount the figures as inflated for breathless weatherpersons, but reports of ten below zero grab my attention.

I retrieve the extra heavy black ski jacket. Next to be fished out of the back of the closet are fleece lined Patagonia pants, wool hats, and recently purchased Thinsulate mittens. I also rummage through the dresser drawer for long sleeved UNIQLO extra warm t-shirts, and just in case put long underwear on alert.

To add to this, I fuel the snow blower and start it to assure that when push comes to shove it will work. Snow shovels are strategically placed at the front, back, and garage doors along with containers of sand to prevent mishaps if the ice proves intractable.

And while in the garage, snowbrushes and ice scrapers along with shovels are placed in the car’s trunks. One car, an overpowered sports coupe, is slippery on anything other than dry pavement, so as a reward for a life spent driving beaters, come around November I fit it with four snow tires.

When the cold materializes windows and doors are searched for air leaks. Various types of barriers are employed to seal what is ultimately an un-sealable house. There is more but at the moment, I can’t think . . . . No wait, I oil the Bell & Gossett circulating water pump on the boiler, and bleed the radiators of accumulated air.

In late September, the storm windows are lowered in place. A portable electric radiator is put in the back porch and the crawl space underneath it is packed with fiberglass insulation. Of course, the front and back water spigots are drained along with what water is left in the garden hoses.

I have a few survivalist tendencies, so I stock up on pasta and canned tomatoes and red wine, and let’s not forget cookies and flour and yeast. To add to the above list, in September I did much the same thing to Carrie Rose, our handsome cruising tug.

Is it any wonder that Chicago’s population shrinks every year. Instead of constantly raising taxes and fees, the city should be paying us a hazardous duty stipend. The block I live on is magnanimous. Once I have the snow blower running I will continue south for three or four houses, and occasionally some gracious soul will clear the snow from the entire block’s sidewalks.

In October, I pull R. H. Blyth’s Haiku Vol. 4 down from the bookcase’s upper shelf, and read Buson’s haiku: My bones feel the quilts; A frosty night. That about sums winter up for me.

Only now can I take the liberty to think of winter’s preparation. It is March, and there is hope in the still frigid air.

March 2019