On Leaving

When I was 21 I’d lived my entire life essentially in one house. I’d never crossed a national border, said good-bye to more than one friend at a time, or packed for more than a month away. If you’d told me then that within 6 years I’d be in the middle of my 5th inter-continental move (with two more bearing down on me), I might not have laughed, but I’m sure I would have smiled, taking it, strangely, as rather blatant flattery. I remember my first real departure, the intensity of it, the thrill and pain and the tears through laughter. I remember how alive I felt. In the years since, filled with heart-wrenching goodbyes under the security cameras and joyful meetings at baggage claim, the airports and faces and tears have slowly bled into one anonymous past, as if I were acting in a film based on a true story, trying to touch a flame that can’t touch me. The strongest ache now comes not from the bracing punch of reality, but from the inability to feel anything that could do justice to the moment, to what those around me are feeling. But like fear, most passion - perhaps even most emotion - is rooted in the unknown, and it is inevitable that those who leave expose the truth that can’t be learned by staying: mere moments after saying goodbye to everything we’ve ever known, life goes on. That is, at least, what we tell ourselves, as we step through another metal detector and wave that final wave again. It is clear to me that experience grants a certain familiarity with what I will feel, what will be said to me, and what I must do. But familiarity can only take me so far. The one certainty about every departure is uncertainty; we never step out of the same river twice. Departures are like a treadmill that’s just a bit too fast for me - no matter how hard I run it will throw me off. Even though repetition may take away the initial shock of being thrown, even if I learn to approximate when the fall will come, the fact remains that the ground on which I stand is about to make a dramatic change of speed. The only thing that really changes is how quickly I can get up, dust myself off, and step back on. “Certainly it hurts,” says H.W. Lawrence. “The trick… is not minding that it hurts.” We are sedentary creatures by nature. The desire to be rooted is in our bones, the act of uprooting ourselves always strikes a nerve. Leaving a group of people sets the clock ticking away against me a little faster than it should, and I rarely get the right words out in time (and when I do there are always more right words that come too late). To whatever lengths I go, the sought for feeling of being “ready” to leave the person is never quite achieved. Of course not, as long as I’m trying to heal all trace of heartache, since the deepest ache demands one and only one remedy: to not leave. Aches will linger, loose-ends will dangle, and regrets are as inevitable as mistakes. The only true completion is the one that starts with birth and ends with death, all other acts leave something incomplete, a farewell to what has become my life and yet I live on. And so departures always catch us off guard, feeling unprepared in some corner of our hearts. I know this all too well, but just as understanding the force of gravity might alleviate some confusion but do nothing to free me from the effects, so it is with the force of leaving. No matter how collected I manage to be, no matter how quickly I can get up off the floor, I will always leave something behind. 　

The Living Museum

What must it feel like to be a living museum? How can one exist as part of a past so remote, so indistinct, so lost, without becoming lost as well? Undeniably the past has parented this present world, but no silvery mirror, no drop of blood, no spark of the mind betrays a thread of common lineage. The present age is an orphan, raised in a world of foster families and half-brothers, all unsure of what a parent is, even as the ghosts of our mothers and fathers drift through the haunted orphanage, barely seen but impossible to ignore. There are those who choose the shadow world; as ghosts they walk through our world while living in the world we came from, too long ago to remember. What must it feel like to put on the face of a mother, a father, a Creator, and see the child gawk, chatter nervously, take a picture, and remember nothing?

This young woman walked past me, and though I don't know where she came from or where she was going - doubtless from one meticulously recreated world to another - her transition through the world of broad daylight was spellbinding indeed. Though avoiding the main bustling streets her quiet passage drew a crowd; not of foreigners longing for an elusive glimpse of the Japan they came to see, but of Japanese schoolchildren and grandmas and adults going home from work, digging for their cameras and hesitantly mumbling the one-word request "picture?" They're uncomfortable, uncertain how to speak with this specter, frightened by their fascination, and she is just as reluctant, silent, as displaced as a deer transported to the streets of Tokyo. The contrast is drawn by one old man whose confidence is grating "Hey there, where are you going? I'll bet you're going to the tea houses? Isn't that right? Right? Hey, Maiko-san, say something!"

Maiko means "dancing girl," the title for an apprentice geisha, a rigorous year-long trial by fire entered into -in Kyoto and Nara- usually before the age of 18. Her averted gaze and nervous grace begin to take on new meaning, new poignancy. What must it feel like to choose a life of mystery in a world where ever rattle is broken and every lock picked? Can ghosts of our past survive in the blinding light we've created? What happens when we look back without memory, stare into the eyes of our parents without recognition? What can we do with this exhibit, out of joint, too real, too strange? What must it feel like to be a living museum?

Random Thoughts, May

-Do birds know that cats can’t fly, Or are they just relieved to not be followed into the sky? -Sometimes I feel like the only one who thinks that happiness and contentment ought not to be the highest goals of life. -Humanity’s greatest need is to stop needing anything beyond what we have. -The written word will never be able to compete with the spoken word. In print we all hear the words in our own voice, spoken in a way we would expect. Only the words spoken into our ears from an existence separate from our own allows the full power of the “other” to sink its teeth into us. -Rather than miss people who are far away, I spend much more time missing the people who are right in front of me. -When dealing with a captive audience, the only thing that counts is the ending. -Having no one to rely on by no means guarantees the development of self-sufficiency; the fires of loneliness and disorientation can destroy as easily as refine. But still it is immeasurably easier to find the strength within one’s self when there is nowhere else to look. When the dream-like possibilities of romantic salvation and heroic leaders whisper and reach out, it’s extraordinarily difficult to not reach back, regardless of all hard-earned understanding of the impermanence of it all.

Wakayama Wanderings Illustrated

I've been unusually busy this week, and legitimately haven't had time and/or energy to continue with the story of Wakayama Wanderings. I did, however, have the energy to tinker with my pictures from the trip, and here are the results. I'm trying to expand the limits of my editing ability, since that now strikes me as more essential with a SLR camera, and as a result these pictures are obviously over-processed. Still, if not all of them are exactly art, they at least give a good idea of what I saw and experienced on the trip. Please let me know what you think, and any critical pointers are very welcome. These are in no particular order, because pictures are a pain to organize on this site. :-) You can click on them for a full-sized (though low quality) version. Once again, to be continued...!

In Search of the Real Japan: Wakayama Wanderings

“Sometimes reality is bigger than your dreams.” A friend wrote me these words years ago, speaking about hard-learned lessons in her young life. But somehow they kept echoing in my head while I was facing a very different struggle: how to describe the unimaginable force of an experience that I can’t quite explain to myself?

What is it about a still forest path fading around a bend that touches my soul? Why do stray wisps of clouds dancing on a mountainside make me more content than all the company and possessions I could desire? How can a subtle shift of self-perception so slight that it falls into the dark crack between words seem to light up the world with new colors and shades? I may never know, just as I may never really be able to explain the momentous non-events of the past two weeks.

In my teenage years I used to hang from a bar for two minutes every night for chiropractic reasons. Quickly I learned that being able to see the timer count down the slow seconds was the worst kind of torture, that the task was significantly less difficult if I just closed my eyes and waited for the beep. When I knew exactly when I could let go, somehow it seems like I couldn't have held on a second longer.

I had a relapse of this lesson in the weeks before my recent vacation. I just had to get out, had to get time to breathe, and I was counting the days, the hours even, watching freedom drift imperceptible closer. Tick...Tck...Tick... By the time the final beep came I exploded out of the office with the speed of gravity yanking my twitching fingers off that bar. “Mountains,” my soul sang, “mountains mountains mountains!” It’s strange how loneliness can make me yearn for solitude. I guess humans are prepared to adapt to almost any circumstances; it’s half-life that kills us. The majority of my time in Japan is spent alone, but only in the worst way. Every minute of the work day is spent surrounded by people with whom I can’t communicate or who don’t have time to communicate with me, and I can find neither the opportunity for company nor the freedom to be alone. Ironically I was about to use my two weeks of freedom in an attempt to seize both ends of the spectrum. Along with planning a long awaited soul-cleansing trek though the majestic mountains to the south, I’d also invited one of my closest friends to come down from Tokyo and join me during the time that our holidays overlapped. I had a few days before she was free, however, so on a whim I decided to head for a monastic center called Koya-san, by way of Osaka. Osaka was, as always, the perfect launching pad for a quest for “Serene Japan,” for the simply reason that Osaka is anything, absolutely anything, but serene. A showcase for the modern “Real Japan” in all it’s glorious facsimile and impenetrable superficiality, this city makes my head spin every time. After this, I reasoned, almost any place would seem peaceful and simple.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eBkmBIifQ0&feature=channel_page

I then headed to Koya-san, with very few expectations. http://www.youtube.com/user/extravpenguin Koya-san filled me with two very strong and diametrically opposed reactions. Wandering through the vast mossy lantern-lit cemetery long after dark, for the first time I was suddenly seized with the thought that I don’t want to leaveJapan. The cemetery overwhelmed me, and quite defeated my camera at all times of day or night. I could have spent days there, and this is to say nothing of the 100+ temples nestled into the mountains nearby. Rooms full of golden lanterns and thick incense, massive pagodas housing enchanted goddesses, monks robes swishing over tatami, bells at dawn and dusk; and to think I nearly didn’t come. The rub is that there are so many places in Japan that could be equally inspiring, and yet I have plans that pull on me and very little time or money to see much more than I’ve already seen. I’ve been killing time, waiting for the real adventure to begin (much by necessity, the majority of my time is killed at work whether I assist in the “mercy killing” or not). Now I realize that I need more time, that I’ve missed so much.

It’s more than sightseeing that I’m talking about. As I walked past wave after wave of unique Buddhist statues, some barely peeking their noses out of dark knotholes, others towering over me in the gloom, most standing quiet guard over the glint of scattered coins, cups of sake, oranges small and big, vases of flowers, I felt myself being confronted with devotion. Japan is anything but a country of religious fervor. The most pronounced spiritual characteristics are an adherence to tradition and a passive tolerance that comes not from an acceptance of all, but a happy indifference to all. But here, with every chisel mark, every fresh flower, every chanted prayer, I could feel faith. It’s different than any faith I’ve known before, the material and function is different, but it’s real faith. The temple where I slept welcomed its visitors to morning prayers, and in the candle-lit room shrouded in incense, as I listened to the chants and prayers of these mostly young men, I realized that I was looking at them as a kind of living museum, put on display in an “historically-accurate” environment, fulfilling tradition and duty with their lives. Just as quickly I realized that they in no way see themselves this way. Unlike the geisha in Kyoto, living a life of history for those who want a taste of the past, these monks have a sense of their own value and meaningfulness in the here and now. They live in sincere devotion to a belief in something they cannot see or touch. In the face of the tourist’s camera their eyes do not flit away as do the geisha’s, who knows she’s on display; they smile, ignore, frown, in essence they react as someone who lives a real life in a real world, not a prop for historical reenactment. They live lives of devotion, of faith. Back in the cemetery after morning prayers row after row of stone figures roll out of sight beyond the towering trees, chronicling age upon age of that faith and devotion. And the visitors to these monuments come, wearing dark ropes or “well-worn style” jeans, carrying a pilgrim’s staff or the newest digital camera, they walk, they ride, they fly, covering the distance in hours or weeks, but the sounds of a splash, a clap, a chant are the same in this place as they have been for a thousand years, perhaps for a thousand years more.

These revelations crowded my mind, and I am overwhelmed by what more this country could reveal to me, if only time were not running out.

At the same time, other thoughts balance my awe. No site of any note in Japan can fully escape the country’s compulsive “Will to Convenience.” Never mind that some things were intended to be difficult; I suppose nothing feels cheapened as long as the price-tag stays high. In Koya-san the primary manifestation of Modern Japan’s restless tentacles is a road. It’s the only main road, can’t be too old, and it runs right through the middle of the temples, literally past their front doors, and the sound of engines can be heard everywhere: the raked rock gardens, the painted tea rooms, the inner sanctuaries, none escape the roar of traffic. Kobo-Daishi, the founding monk of the 8th century, hunted for years to find this place far from the distractions of the ancient capitals in Kyoto and Nara. It would have taken weeks to get here from anywhere in those days, and all would be left behind in the process. Now it’s a day trip, there and back again within hours, and the accessibility of all the world has to offer is as impossible to ignore as the ever-flowing river of cars.

Could not the region’s inter-city highway be built away from this place of serenity? Would it be impossible to ask visitors seeking peace to park their cars a few blocks away and walk into a refuge from noise and commotion? But I’m sure that when the road was prepared for automobiles that no thought was given to this, only to convenience and access. And with that access other elements of the world have infiltrated as well. Every guest room in the temple I slept at was fitted with a T.V. Yes, if we want to stay at the temple we must respect the monastic lifestyle by getting up for prayers at 5:30, but we can spend the rest of the time soaking up Japanese game shows and American sitcoms. The austere temple hallways include barely-concealed vending-machines and “western style” toilets with heated seats and an array of buttons, and down the street lines of shops sell “collectable” Buddha key-chains and “vegetarian snacks.”

Somehow these worlds live side-by-side, and let’s not forget that I myself am a tourist here, but somehow it feels diluted, and much that the location and history of this place intended has not escaped the world of “all things to all people, at a fair price and a convenient time.” Enlightenment out for sampling with the pickled ginger, spiritual pilgrimage by way of a weekend package bus tour, a soothing escape from all we bring with us. This is a place of strength, a real place, and it seems that Koya-san has managed to use its spirit of vitality as a selling point without selling its soul. But something is missing. No matter how deep I breathe there’s still a tightness in my heart, and the simple darkness behind my eyelids is inevitably invaded by the noise of complexity. The world was held back, but it never seemed very far away, reminding me that my escape is temporary. Now I know more clearly what I am looking for, and I’m ready to go deeper.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Preview

Like dreaming,

Like slowly waking,

The Mountains welcome me home.

As clouds kiss the trees,

The rain ends.

Devotion in stone, even prayers sent up alone, still cut to the bone. Just a preview of the upcoming multi-media presentation of my recent trip, coming soon to a computer near you (I promise!).