Awkward

Awkward is an apt description of the last few years. It is awkward not to see family and friends, awkward not to travel or even drive around the city, awkward to fear grocery stores, awkward to wear a mask, awkward to Zoom and Skype instead of hug and share meals, awkward not to make dinner reservations or buy tickets for favorite music venues, and it is awkward to write this!

 

My wife Charlotte and I decided to become less awkward in 2021. We went cruising in Maine, reunited with family and friends, and drove 3000 miles to and from Maine. These were done carefully and fully vaccinated. The majority of our people protected themselves and in doing so protected us.

 

My tea ceremony and shakuhachi lessons remained remote but at least weathered the complexity of Covid life. There have been challenges and growth, which helped me remain sane.

 

Now it is January, and January at the best of times is a time for introspection. The cold and dark turn thoughts inward and this is especially true when no trek to warmer climes is contemplated. 

 

Charlotte’s mother Tillie was our excuse to seek the sun. She lived in a small city (her home town) in the middle of South Carolina. I prepared our over powered Honda Coupe by fitting it with snow tires. They helped us safely negotiate the Appalachian Mountains on the way to the Palmetto State.

 

I write this at my kitchen table, and I can see South Carolina’s low country appear in the distance from the final mountain pass. After the tumult of the mountains, suddenly a palm tree savannah emerges. As if on their own, the car’s sunroof and windows open and let in warm humid air. Sun and heat, not to mention palm trees, seem otherworldly in January, at least to this Midwestern boy.

 

Soon tall spindly pine forest surrounds us, and as we near our final destination, sandy fields of cotton began to appear. We traverse long low bridges amidst cypress swamps. And usually, we are greeted at her front door by large dark green bushes filled with flowering camellias.

 

Sometimes we stay put and sometimes we wander further east to St. Simons Island or Hilton Head, to Savannah or Charleston, and even occasionally, when cabin fever is out of control, into Florida. These forays, at times as far south as Miami, are regretted once we turn north for home. 

 

Heat turns to cold, curvy mountain roads are shared with monstrous trucks, ice and snow storms hinder our way, plus the lack of anticipation turns the trip home - as hard as we try for it not to be - into a chore rather than an adventure. 

That said, once home it is gratifying to unlock the backdoor and stride into a familiar space, to sleep on one’s own bed, and return to comforting routines . . . awkward as they may be.

January 2021 

Next

I always look forward to next year. While not trying to speed towards my demise, it is that every year I expect a fuller life. Even when it is cold and dark, and the city is hunkered down, I anticipate the surprises that await me when the light returns. About this, I am seldom wrong. 

 

Granted I have been lucky, not that I am sold on this sort of thing. I like to think I have been prepared, because if you get a lucky break but are not prepared to capitalize on it, it is wasted.

 

This year provided us a reprieve. I thank the thousands of scientist who spent decades developing unique vaccines. We joined polite society again with hesitancy and caution. Nonetheless, relationships rekindled in the flesh and Zoom took a backseat. As I read and reread the statistic of Covid infections, hospitalizations, and deaths, it is reassuring to know that the virtual world is ready and waiting to reactivate. 

 

In Chado, there is a saying: one meeting, one time. Each moment is irreplaceable. That is how I remember 2020 and the first few months of 2021. It was a time to reconnect to my home and backyard; to develop coping mechanisms; to wake each morning with a plan for the day that in reality was not much different than the plan for the day before. I adapted to the circumstances. It became a way of being.

 

I am grateful for 2021’s freedom even as I am ready to revert to a safer posture if necessary. I am fortunate to be born when I was, to be now retired, and to be comfortable in my own skin. If the pandemic occurred in my teens and twenties I doubt I would be this complacent. 

 

Those were also turbulent times replete with an unending war, multiple assassinations, racial tensions, a deep recession, and ongoing inflation. One had reasons for hopelessness and anxiety but then, for some reason, I acknowledged the never ending notion of time. 

 

It was not in a moment of enlightenment but in the daily routine of wake and sleep, of work and leisure, of the mundane and the extraordinary events that life offers. I habituated to time flowing off me like water off a duck’s back. 

 

Thus, each year I expect more from myself, and spend time in preparation to take full advantage of any chance occurrence. I am realistic enough to know that one day, despite the preparation, I will need to pass on an opportunity or worse yet, not recognize one. I think I am prepared for this eventuality but I am probably dead wrong about this with a capital “D”.

 

So now with the end of 2021, I move on to next year: a year of surprises, a year of wonders as well as adversities. A “next” year to be excited about, and that in itself is a wonder! 

December 2021

Explanations

I often have to explain chanoyu, the tea ceremony, and explain my participation in this obscure art form to friends and acquaintances, not to mention the public. This is especially so since I am an Italian-American with a Chicago accent. I struggle to represent chanoyu in a succinct cogent way. Japanese culture fascinates people, many have seen trappings of the tea ceremony, and this only increases their curiosity.

The concepts that define chanoyu have nothing whatsoever to do with drinking tea. It is safe to say that in my first thirty years of study no one ever talked about the tea itself except in general terms. I knew there was a difference in the quality of the matcha used in usucha (thin tea) and koicha (thick tea) but if asked to define it I would be at a loss .

 

Even today describing tea in oenology terms is beyond me. Of course, some tea is bitter and some is sweet, and some teas have a different mouth feel than others. There is some color variation, but in the class of tea I have been privileged to drink, all are acceptable.

 

It was not until recently, when matcha became a popular ingredient in many of the drinks prepared in coffee houses, that I realized that all teas are not created equal. Over the years well intentioned friends, knowing my interest in tea have bestowed different varieties of matcha upon me. It was only then that I realized that the matcha I have been drinking over the last forty years is the equivalent of the finest French Burgundy.

 

So, when my explanation of chanoyu begins with a list of the philosophical foundation for making tea and not something concrete as above, I am already at risk of losing my audience. Nonetheless, that is where I begin.  

 

One of the founding principles of chanoyu is Ichigo, ichie, or One time, one meeting, which reflects the Zen influence. And then there are the four principles of chanoyu: wa, kei, sei, and jaku; respectively harmony, respect, purity, and tranquility. As I recite these, I begin to sense puzzlement: “What does this have to do with making a bowl of tea?” 

 

At this point, I feel compelled to talk about the mechanics of making tea. I try to explain the classic setting: the welcoming garden and its path’s destination, the chashitsu/tea hut. I discuss the utensils needed to make a proper bowl of matcha. This explanation of chanoyu seems off putting. 

 

Who actually has a chashitsu let alone a garden to put one in? Does this mean that only people with the above can study chanoyu? Of course, the answer to the first question is, not many, and the second is, no. The next line of questioning that often follows is what are the circumstances in which chanoyu is done, whom it is done for, and probably the most pressing question, why is it done.

I fall back on history, thinking that putting chanoyu into historical context will help to explain why chanoyu represents the culmination of Japanese culture, but with most people’s exposure limited to anime, sushi, and samurai movies, the concept that making a bowl of tea is an art form is hard to grasp.

 

The next questions usually concern, and I do not say this lightly, kneeling to make tea. This is difficult to answer in a short sentence. I state that in the late 1800’s when the West peacefully invaded Japan it was thought necessary to develop tea procedures to be done seated. And I state that in an increasingly ageing and westernized Japan, the seated style has taken on a new significance.

 

I understand that most of the information I am struggling to transmit can be found by a simple Internet search. That what is important is my experience with chanoyu, and with the multitude of people who I have met who’s lives have been enriched by the simple pleasure of making a bowl of tea and sharing it with family, friends, and with complete strangers.

 

Explanations should probably be left to the experts. Will this realization stop me from trying all the above, I doubt it. Whether making a humble bowl of usucha or the most complex bowl of koicha, the basic principle of chanoyu can be learned and reinforced . . . despite the puzzlement!

October 2021

Wisps

This year autumn has been a slow burn. As I write this on 11/08/2021, the leaves are still changing and it is over 60 degrees. There has been one wimpy frost in Chicago that finally ended the tomato crop but there is still swiss chard and the last of the peppers.

This time of year, tea folk switch from the Furo to the Ro. The fire moves from the outer part of the room to the middle, so we can huddle around it for heat. Of course, living in America with central heat turns this into a symbolic gesture rather than a practical one. But there are other reasons for the move.

 

It breaks up the monotony of doing the same procedure repeatedly. It allows us with the blessing of having the proper utensils a chance to get them out of the closet. It challenges us to recreate ceremonies left behind 6 months ago. It stimulates the neurons and hopefully in so doing delays the onset of dementia in the older of us.

 

In the geometrically arranged tearoom, all the angles change. Now instead of sitting straight towards the furo and the mizushashi we are at angles to them. An added benefit of this is that we are closer to our guest. It seems cozier. The Ro ideally sits below the mats but in most of our homes, it sits above, as cutting a hole in the floor is not a practical solution. 

 

There are many boundaries in a tearoom. An outer and an inner frames surround the Ro. The alignment of our bodies to this frame denotes the level of formality: more formal the outer edge, less formal the inner edge.

 

The tea utensils cascade from the mizushashi centered on the host’s mat along an imaginary line created by the above with the outer or inner border of the Ro. It is a matter of centimeters in which a millimeter out of alignment is obvious. The placement of the tearoom in space is another topic in itself and one that I am only mildly familiar with.

 

When I am in my makeshift tearoom, I think of walking down the side streets of Kyoto. Unlike Tokyo’s disarray, Kyoto is based on a grid system similar to Chicago. Maybe that is why I feel comfortable there. The streets meet up at right angles and the addresses make linear sense. It is a well ordered city.

 

And tea is a well ordered pastime, though pastime is too casual of a term. Lifestyle may be better, but even that misses the mark. It verges on religion but that is not it either. The correct word is bouncing around in my mind but I cannot quite grasp it. In fact, it is giving me a headache.

 

I will let it rest for now and it may present itself in an intuitive flash. Besides, I have more important things to think about. Do I sit facing the outer or the inner border? Have I aligned the tea container and the chasen properly in space? Is the mizushashi centered and sixteen spaces from the front of the Ro’s upper border? Have I been able to fit my large kneeling self into the demarcated space?

 

I use to dread the coming of winter but tea’s natural cycle creates the excitement of change and renewal. Everything may be dark and gloomy outside while in the tearoom the Ro’s red glow beneath the simmering kettle of water warms the soul. Wisps of steam rise and infiltrate the space where host and guest are drawn closer together.                        

Shipshape

Carrie Rose, our 32’ Nordic Tug, has been put away for the winter. She is in a heated shed having long awaited repairs and upgrades done along with the usual season’s end maintenance. I am back to sitting at our Talman Ave. bungalow’s kitchen table partaking of the same breakfast I have eaten for decades: tea, toast with jam and peanut butter, yogurt, and fruit if available. 

It is the same meal on the boat; the only difference is that on the boat a mission follows the meal. Here at home it feels as if I have missed the last step on the way down a staircase. I rise out of the chair, move forward, but then stop and wonder what is next. It is an odd feeling, like I have lost my equilibrium.

 

When living on the boat for extended periods the body gets use to the constant motion and adapts. The brain compensates, dampening the yaw, pitch, and roll. It is when back on a firm surface that the above motions return. It seems the compensation has a built in delay. To readjust to the earth’s solid unmoving surface takes time. 

 

And so, now, several weeks off the water I find my first steps continue to be calculated and unsteady. I attribute this to age, since the transition was not such an interminable process years back. I also attribute it to a lack of mission. 

 

On the boat after breakfast there is a course to plot, pre-start checklists to follow, weather and tides to review, an anchor to raise, and the general work of making the little ship shipshape. These determinant steps are lacking on land. 

 

Other than finding my car keys, I do not need a checklist to walk out to the car and start it. Though, as I write this, I can feel the void quickly dissipating. Doctor appointments are scheduled, dinner plans with friends and family are in the works, trips for provisions are contemplated, and maybe, if the Covid variant allows, a jazz or classical venue will be visited.

 

This summer’s cruise exist only as reminiscence. The wind, waves, tides, and currents are a thing of the past. My mind has begun to relinquish control to the default of the stable earth. Soon my first steps will be without hesitation. 

 

So, I will cherish this time of hesitancy to move out onto a stable platform and continue to steady myself . . . as I search for a mission.

September 2021   

Jumping

Maine’s heat wave broke. We were lucky that Mt. Battie, which lies northwest of Camden diverter the severe thunderstorms. There was a little rain and a lot of black clouds and distant thunder but the worst skirted by. More importantly, we did benefit from its cooling effect.

It was time for Carrie Rose, our 32’ Nordic Tug, to leave Camden. The first anchorage, Barred Island, was ruled out due to exposure to the NE winds that were to predominate for the next few days. Sir Tugley Blue, our cruising companions, suggested a well protected unnamed bay between Holbrook Island and Smith Cove, so off we went on an 18 nautical mile cruise northeast on East Penobscot Bay. 

 

The bay is approximately one mile from Castine. Castine is on the swift flowing (especially in an ebb tide) Bagaduce River, which is in reality a tidal estuary. It is a classy village and is home to the Maine Maritime Academy. Their large training ship, the State of Maine, cannot be missed.

 

Castine’s European history begins in 1604 and ends with the British leaving in 1815. Between those years, it was fought over by the French, British, Dutch, and Americans. For its remote location Castine has been the site of many battles including America’s largest loss of life in one battle before Pearl Harbor (474 men) during the ill fated Penobscot Expedition of 1779.

 

The turn from East Penobscot Bay is between the northern tip of Holbrook Island and Can “1A”, which protected Carrie Rose’s bottom from the barely submerged Nautilus Rock.

 

As an aside, cans are always green and nuns and always red. Occasionally, there are multicolored buoys, which usually demarcate a junction on the watery road of life. One such buoy, the red and white “CH” (it also has a bell) exists just north of us at the junction of the Bagaduce River and East Penobscot Bay.

 

Once past the entrance, the bay opens up, and I noticed many grey mottled black heads and noses of the local seals. They are most often solitary creatures but not here. I even saw one with a large silver fish in its mouth, a first.  

 

We motored straight in and set the anchor on the 17 foot mark on the chart. The tide eventually lifted us to 29 feet and in anticipation of this I had let out 110 feet of chain. Dave, from Sir Tugley Blue, came by on his dingy to invite us for dinner and to discuss the coming rainy days strategy. As I grabbed his line, a large bald eagle soared past us and perched onto a small shorelines tree.

 

The surface of the bay came alive with jumping fish that were no doubt being chased by the legion of seals. And then to starboard a pair of dorsal fins appeared, one smaller than the other. They surfaced several times always next to each other leading me to conjecture that they were mother and baby spending a pleasant afternoon gorging on the plentiful fish.

 

Charlotte and I took the dingy to the granite gravel beach for a walk and on the way passed close under the eye of the eagle. The beach is on an isthmus between our unnamed bay and Smith Cove. The dinghy’s varnished wood bottom scratched as we dragged it up on the beach. The flood tide is relentless and soon the dingy was floating again, so we took the hint and motored back to Carrie Rose. 

 

Now we had seen eagles, seal, osprey, porpoises collectively feeding on the jumping fish, so Charlotte named our unnamed bay, Jumping Fish Bay, a wholly appropriate name. 

July 2021   

 

               

 

Frantic

Prior to Covid I had an active social life: visits with friends and family, music venues of all types, restaurants to try, art exhibits and movies, music lessons, travel, small boat cruising, etc., etc. And then there was the tea ceremony world: lessons, demonstration, making and procuring tea ware, and always the next event or anniversary celebration and trip to Japan. When I look back at it some 18 months later, it was frantic.

 

Frantic is an odd word. It derives from the Middle English “frenetik” which means temporarily deranged, delirious. In my medical practice, I came to understand that a delirious patient was not long for this world. It is hard to put that in the context of the above activities. 

 

Chado (The Way of Tea) and the Zen Buddhism it stems from is about living in the moment. This moment will never come again. Experience it to the fullest, forget about the result of your labors and perform each gesture with mindfulness, and only then will tea be made and served to your guest with the potential of enlightenment.

 

Of course, this image of chanoyu as a quiet but intense spiritual practice belies the frantic preparation that takes place seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months before the tea is whisked and presented to the guest. New tea students, after being drawn into tea by a stirring demonstration, are often perplexed to find that much of the training entails the mizuya, the kitchen.

 

I suppose it is the same for my musical pursuit of the shakuhachi. The first introduction to playing is folk and children’s songs. They are short, just a few lines of characters long. The tempo is straightforward. The tune is recognizable and even cute as opposed to the heady repertoire later encountered.

 

There is a frantic rush, mainly on the student’s side, to progress. To discover and delve into the esoteric world of komuso monks freely wandering the countryside totally devoted to the music (with maybe a little spying on the side) and to nature. 

 

This may be fanciful, but I have heard that certain groups of shakuhachi players only play one tune in their search for the truth. I find this hard to fathom as my book of sheet music becomes thicker. 

 

The past non-frantic year gave me time to rethink the value of my chanoyu and shakuhachi practice, and more fundamentally, of how I live my life. 

 

In chanoyu, there is ryaku-bon, the simplest preparation of tea. The utensils used fit on a small tray allowing tea to be made anywhere at any time. In shakuhachi, close equivalents are the doyo, children’s songs, and the minyo, folk tunes. Both the above provide examples of how to live a simpler post pandemic life.

 

I appreciate the pie-in-the-sky aspect of this. I am not a mendicant monk living in a wilderness temple making tea and blowing sounds into an ancient forest. I am a Chicagoan who in the future will endeavor to be not quite so delirious, so frenetic. Wish me luck!

June 2021

Tana

Rikyū (1522-91) is famous for codifying chanoyu, the tea ceremony. He was an innovator who popularized the aesthetic of wabi/sabi. For adherents of Chado, The Way of Tea, he is considered the founder. Though, now that I say this, he is a distant, almost mythical figure. At least for us in the west, we learn the basic chronology of his life but not many of the details. 

 

Much of what we do know was written years after his death, so there are questions of authenticity. But this is common with many historical figures and does not distract from his significance. 

 

One point of contact for us is a compilation of aphorisms mainly attributed to him. It is called Rikyū Hyakushu or Rikyū’s Hundred Verses (1). The verses resemble waka poetry in form. They were compiled by Gengensai, the 11th Urasenke Iemoto from works by Rikyu himself and from one of his teachers. 

 

The verses are mainly instructional, and of interest to students and practitioners of tea but a few have a wider context. They begin with: To have the mind to enter this path is, indeed, to have an inherent teacher. One must want to learn to gain an understanding of the art or craft being taught. I am afraid many a childhood piano lesson is squandered due to the student’s lack of interest. 

 

Another favorite verse is: In that chanoyu is possible as long as you have one kettle, it is foolish to possess numerous implements. If any of Rikyu’s dictums has been egregiously ignored this is the one. Chanoyu lends itself to collecting. There are multiple levels of formality and seasonal changes. Each requires a stash of utensils, and that brings me to the purpose of this commentary, tana or shelves.

 

Tana are shelves that are used to display tea utensils in the tearoom. While not a requirement for making tea, they are often used. Early in my study of chanoyu, in pre-internet days, the availability of tana and tea utensils was limited. And since I inherited the handy gene from my father, I endeavored to make several tana. Three were made from rescued southern Illinois hundred year old oak barn wood. 

 

At that time, I had no notion of the parameters that tana conform to, or just how many tana designs exist. When I introduced the tana to my teachers, certain peculiarities in my design were graciously brought to my attention. The orientation of the grain; the location of the nodes on the bamboo posts; the ratio between the width, height, and depth; the materials used and in the simplest of terms, their usability. 

 

As I think back, it was beginner’s luck that each of them, with a little forethought, worked well and brought a sense of the builder and of the land (Southern Illinois) into the chashitsu/tearoom. The provenance and knowledge of how to use them will need to be passed to the next user for it will not be written in a formal text.

 

And this brings me back to the multitude of tea ware. A book details each tana used in the Urasenke tradition of tea. It explains the appropriate use of each tana in terms of the season, the level of formality, the compatible utensils, and includes a photograph. Though the book is in Japanese, it is a visual treat for anyone interested in design, in architecture, in woodworking, and in fine finishes. 

 

The pandemic has given me time to ponder my tea life. I have made tea ware from the beginning of my study. When the tea season recently changed from Winter (Ro) to Spring (Furo), I saw an opportunity to go to my basement workshop and construct a tana. There were pieces of wood and bamboo saved for such a project. 

 

I had a design in my mind’s eye but confronted by the materials, and limited by tools and skill level, the final shape eluded me. Over the years, Professor Emeritus Shōsō Satō of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has inspired me with his vast knowledge of Japanese arts and crafts. He is a true Maker in the modern sense of the word, so when I am confounded I look to his example and carry on.

 

The tana took form and will soon be put to the test. Rikyu also stated: Keep tea rustic and, through your heart, give warm hospitality; for the implements, always use items which you have at hand. This I will endeavor to do.

 

(1) The quoted verses are from Rikyū’s Hundred Verses by Iguchi Kaisen with translation by Gretchen Mittwer. The book is available from Tankosha Publishing Co., Kyoto.

May 2021

 

Hopeful

It is 9:30 in the morning. The usual breakfast of tea and toast has been consumed, and the day is before me. It is Monday, a free day without chanoyu lessons (Tuesday) or shakuhachi lessons (Friday). Both, of course, are still on Zoom and Skype. 

 

So, today I have to come up with a plan. There is enough bread so I cannot fall back on that. There is enough wine and groceries stored to take us into May. It is too early and too cold to start picking weeds out of the garden. What’s a guy to do?

 

I wander to the front of the house where Charlotte is busy managing her father’s finances and look out the window. The same cars parked there for the last year are still there. The usual litter of fast food wrappings and smashed plastic bottles is absent, so no need to venture out front. Then I notice a slight rustle in the bare bushes below me. 

 

On closer inspection, I see a meticulous female cardinal. She is olive brown with a feathery crown and a striking orange beak. Then there is a flutter to the right, and it is another female, this one slightly smaller. Is this the child come back with its mother or a competing female, it is hard to know. 

 

Now the front windows have my attention. I sit and wait and hope to catch a glimpse of the striking red cardinal male. Instead, a plump robin scurries from under the bushes, and runs straight into a squirrel as it descends our doomed ash tree.

 

Thirty years ago, we moved into a neighborhood inundated with squirrels but over the decades, the forestry around the house has changed.  Many of the large maples rotted and were taken down. The next door neighbor deforested her backyard, and we removed a large stringy conifer that was mistakenly planted too close to the porch. And with the loss of the trees was the concurrent loss of squirrels. 

 

Last summer we spent quality time with the above critters. We got to know some of them individually. There was the put upon mother robin with a mass of unruly feathers that got skinnier as her child became plumper. There was the acrobatic squirrel with the chopped ears. And the pair of downy woodpeckers that had to fight the sparrows for their turn at the suet hung from the pergola. 

 

It is late March as I write this, and I think back to the warm days in February. I stepped outside into the sun and heard trumpeting geese as they flew low in two perfect V-shaped formations heading north. This was before the climate gremlins decided to dump five feet of snow in the backyard. The snow blower and me had quite a workout. Knock-on-wood, neither of us had a malfunction.

 

When we practice tea in Chicago there is conflict synchronizing our seasons with the seasons in Kyoto. Chanoyu and Japan take particular pride in the changing seasons. I have experienced this during three visits to Japan. The trips have alternated spring, fall, and spring; or in Japanese parlance, sakura, koyo, and sakura.   

 

It is Shubun now, the vernal equinox, and the middle of spring in Kyoto. Of course, here it is cold and spring has barely begun. Only a few hardy ground hugging flowers have immerged. So, when we discuss the factitious flower arrangement in the tokonoma during tea practice, which flowers are appropriate?

 

In Kyoto, there are myriad flowers and flowering trees to choose from. Not so in Chicago: possible candidates are scillia, crocus, or maybe if I am alert, a few forced bright yellow forsythia.

 

2020 was overwhelming and despite my initial hopes, the beginning of 2021 was equally so. I remind myself to be hopeful each morning, and watching the buds and green shoots break through the soil is part of this regime. Soon Chicago’s flowers and trees will catch up with Kyoto’s flora, and the tea conversation will move onto other topics . . . And I find this hopeful. 

 

April 2021

Morte

I have never been religious. As a child, I flirted with religiosity, captivated with what the priest was doing at the altar with his back to the congregation. Curious about the incantations in a dead language; curious about the wine and the water, the gold and the crystal; curious about the unleavened bread that was turned into the body of Christ and the meticulous care with which it was handled. 

As it turned out my first experience with wine (the priests had a wine cellar in the basement), and my first experience with lying (sneaking to the bakery on Lincoln Ave. before going to class) are probably the lasting memories. 

 

I was not cut out to be an altar boy. The Latin prayers were impossible for me to memorize and I never got in the rhythm of ringing the bells during the mass correct. I stuck with it until the mass lost its magisterial mystery by reverting to English and guitars. It was as if they had shown their hand in a game of cards and it was lacking.

 

I am not sure why I bring this distant memory up. What I am really thinking about is morte/death, the impossible notion of the pandemic’s dead. I watched death during my career and it was never easy. If anything I was astounded at how hard it was to die. The spark of life would in most cases linger on much longer then I imagined it could.

 

Of course, this was not the case with traumatic injuries. Despite the incredible energy of the hospital’s staff, it was impossible to reverse the inevitable. I would stand next to the corpse and try to recreate the events to understand what had occurred. A certain amount of introspection is healthy just not too much. 

 

Most of the time, the circumstances did not allow for navel-gazing. There were other pressing problems to address for the living. Time cannot be reversed but of course, you know this. 

 

At the time of writing this, there are approximately 400,000 dead from Covid-19. It is probably not a mistake to add another third to this figure. And this number only takes into count the mortality not the morbidity. Millions have suffered weeks to months of pain and suffering due to the infection, to say nothing of the despair of their families and friends.

 

Early in the pandemic, my household on Talman Ave. decided on caution. Several years back I contracted the flu, and spent 10 to 14 lost day on the living room’s only comfortable chair either shivering wrapped in blankets or sweating pared down to my underwear. It is times like that when I realize how finely tuned our biology is to keep us at equilibrium with the world until a minuscule demon enters our body.

 

When it came to death, my Italian family had well honed rituals. We always had a calendar with the bleeding sacred heart of Jesus in the pantry. The families designated morticians provided it. Many distant relatives died while I was a kid. We would get packed up and spend three or four nights running around the funeral parlor with our cousins. All the while, the departed would quietly supervise our shenanigans.

 

Emotions would ramp up the morning of the burial. Old women clad in black would begin to wail. Occasionally someone would try to hug their love one as the caskets lid lowered. Us kids were like the Greek choir in the back of the room giggling and receiving the designated enforcers evil eye.

 

As the years went by, people lived longer, and our extended family grew farther apart, these events took on less significance and finally ended. It seemed that grief became more personal than collective. 

 

My father funeral was an unplanned (by us at least) affair in a packed church complete with an opera company singing his beloved Italian arias. I am not sure about my mother, but my sister and I were overwhelmed by turnout. Riggio’s Italian restaurant was also overwhelmed with the hundreds of post funereal friends and family that showed up to pay their respect and have pizza.

 

My mother outlived the vast majority of her friends and over three years slowly faded away with dementia. Her send off was a quiet affair in the beautiful chapel at Villa Scalabrini where she spent the last year of her life under the care of a compassionate order of Italian nuns.

 

I beg your forgiveness for burdening you in this time of plague with yet another diatribe. It is February now and the days are lengthening. Each day that we are not buried in snow or wallowing in below zero temperatures is a blessing that brings us closer to spring, glorious spring! Spring is when the glass is have full, and if we have been lucky we can leave morte behind and watch the tiny shoots burst forth with life.

 

March 2021

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