1To be fair, Home Depot claims that the boxes are mostly “Medium” in size.
1 of stored goods I had packed away into a number of closets as a part of my preparation to move to Japan three years ago.The process was simple: open a box, dump out its content, and then throw everything away. After all, the thinking was that if I hadn't missed it in boxes over the past three years, I probably wasn't going to miss it in the trash.
I will admit to not touching a single one of my dozen boxes of books in the attic, but the rest I was able to consolidate into one box of ratty t-shirts, picture files, documents and portfolios, and a random assortment of gift toys that I feel more bad about throwing away than I feel compelled by romantic notions to keep.
Similarly, I will also admit that I haven't been having much trouble with sentimentality in cleaning out the apartment in Japan, either. Then again, many of my friends would argue that I have never had much trouble with sentimentality in the first place.
The image is one of contrast between the hospitality of the distant, halting beauty that nature offers capitulated against the unstated tenuousness of our being. Relative to the comparatively permanent backdrop of the heavens, ours is the trembling, stolen privilege one feels entering into a great house of smoky, oaken walls, or walking down the grand chambers of a cathedral bathed in the flowing colors of stained glass.
This at-once sense of awe and terror is encapsulated in the saying, "Memento Mori": though countless trophies may rest glowingly upon your wall and mantel, always "remember that you will die." In the West, this Latinate truism echoed throughout the Medieval world the constant reality of the inevitability of one's death and subsequent, impending eternal judgment. Such stress places tension on the quality of impermanent things to build towards something more lasting, whether that be the legacy of earthly glory or the bliss of heavenly reward.
The paralleled expression in Japanese art and writing is "物の哀れ," mono no aware. Literally meaning "the sorrow of things," mono no aware expresses an appreciation for the grief associated with the passing, fleeting nature of the world (無常 - mujou).
First described by 18th century Edo scholar, Motoori Norinaga (本居宣長), mono no aware initially evoked a sense of empathetic awareness of the vitality of an object, but more specifically describes the transient sadness that accompanies the realization of the ephemeral nature of any particular instance of pleasure.
Motoori pointed, foremost, to the image of the cherry blossom, whose shocking beauty was marred almost instantly with the knowledge of the imminence of its passing.
"Mono no aware," Ken Liu writes in his eponymous 2013 Hugo Award winning short story, "is an empathy with the universe." It is an attention to the cycles of nature, especially with regards to its forceful impact on every day life. And one does not have to listen very closely to hear the tickling whisper of the winds of nature upon the dolos isles of Japan, to feel it's hot, sultry breath in the summer and cold, uncaring shoulder in the winter.
It has long been said that Japanese culture grew in tandem with the trees that root the island to the seafloor, that Japanese culture was formed by the very waves that so regularly washed away at its shores.
In that case, Japanese culture stands perilously carved out, battered by furious storms, along the edge of a dangerous world of fire along the Asian-Pacific rim. They became a people shaped as much by the scenery and the seasons as by wars and words. As Yamaori Tetsuo (山折哲雄) points out, whether the dangers be natural or man-made, much of the Japanese world was nurtured around "a tendency to submit to nature instead of resisting it." The ancient Japanese, he argues, learned their best lessons for the survival of their culture from listening to the subtle sounds of the heavens and appeasing the fiery tantrums of the earth, bending as the soft branches of the willow does under its burden of snow; bending until the snow sloughs off.
Of all these lessons learned from nature, the foremost, as taught directly from the Shakyamuni (釋迦牟尼) was that "all must die." "It is the experience of repeated earthquakes and typhoons," Yamaori muses, that "nurtured an awareness of mortality and the transience of all things." Everything passes. Everything will eventually die. So remember, you will die. And the things you love will also pass.
And in a thrice post-nuclear apocalyptic Japan, such attention to the end-of-all-things is an ever-present reality.
But, irrespective of natural disaster, nuclear fallout, famine or plague to both Eastern and Western peoples, far from devolving into a sense of despondency and despair, the selfsame acceptance of the transience of the natural order necessarily implies that even the apocalyptic is temporary. "The natural environment also fostered a comforting awareness of the cycle of the seasons and the rebirth that invariably follows death," Yamaori continues. While the flowers that bloomed in the spring withered away in the summer sun, "Invariably the old year gave way to the new," and spring would arrive yet again, allowing the people to face life with grace and patience, flexibility and fortitude, and accept what is before them for what it is and what it offers.
The wise man does not lament the absence of melons as summer passes to autumn. Rather autumn gourds and the anticipation of winter citruses fill his plate.
| やがて死ぬ けしきは見えず 蝉の声 - Matsuo Basho (松尾芭蕉, 1690) | Nothing in the cry Of cicadas suggest they Are about to die - Trans. by Sam Hamill |
This attachment to the beauty of things in the face of their impermanence (not even in spite of) persists today without attenuation. Take, for example, Naotaro Moriyama's (森山直太朗) 2003, "Sakura" (「さくら」):
| さくら さくら ただ舞い落ちる いつか生まれ変わる時を信じ 泣くな友よ 惜別のとき 飾らないあの笑顔で さあ さくら さくら いざ舞い上がれ とわにさんざめく光を浴びて さらば友よ またこの場所で会おう さくら舞い散るみちの さくら舞い散るみちの上で | Sakura, sakura They dance as they fall I believe there will come a day we will begin anew Don't cry, my friend Though it's time for our sad goodbye Come now, put on your smile Sakura, sakura Now they fly in the air We will bask in the light of their eternal play While it's time to say goodbye Let's meet again here On the way where sakura dance and scatter Where the sakura dance and scatter upon the way. |
This emphasis on the beauty of obviously impermanent things, such as cherry blossoms, and the not so obviously impermanent, such as relationships, allows for the valuation of a thing apart from its temporal duration. Its timeless value is preserved in romantic, mystic visions, such as how Ken Liu describes it as, "at once so fleeting and so permanent, like the way I had experienced time as a young child." When seen at the distance of age, which flattens all sense of longevity, each memory becomes a sharp, staccato of images, of poignant feelings that together paint a stippled portrait of life upon the mind with the bold colors of the heart.
It's a beauty that does not just accept the transience of life and its attendant imperfection, but rather reveres it, as in wabi-sabi (侘寂). Richard Powell writes of wabi-sabi, it "nurtures all that is authentic by acknowledging three simple realities: nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect." The beauty of the hand-fired tea cup, of a garden left to grow of its own accord, of a solitary beauty mark upon the cheek, wabi-sabi allows that "beauty" is not limited to those things we deem "perfect," or even "permanent." In ironic actuality, even the temporary beauty of impermanent things exists in perpetuity in the heart of the observer.
"The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living," as Cicero said.
In this way, if a thing, in its very imperfection, strikes the soul as the peal of a bell that tantalizes the balanced edges of the mind, that object has obtained a form of perfection. Wabi-sabi elicits a sense of "serene melancholy and a spiritual longing" to pursue greater forms of perfection, as Andrew Juniper argues.
Counter to the conservative inclination that mutability is a sign of poor quality, the knowledge that a thing will end or an experience can never be repeated heightens the emotional impact. Rather than being washed away with remorse or regret, an object or expression's impermanence begs for intense focus, its imperfection leads to wonder.
Maybe, then, the power of wabi-sabi is curiosity: a curiosity at peace with the various and necessary stages of incompleteness, a curiosity that intrigues us into pursuing more of this fleeting, incorporeal perfection.
And yet, at the same time, wabi-sabi forces us to examine what characteristics we consider comprise “perfection” or “wholeness.”
My time at Ichikashi grows ever shorter.
But we have known this for the past three years. It is not so unexpected. And so it feels like I have been trying to write my farewell article, my farewell speech ever since my first day. What would I want to say has been my legacy, what would I want to say has left an indelible mark upon my being?
Every day would be a new line, a new paragraph to the account I would have to give. And I hoped that it would amount to a narrative of which I would be proud, a story with which I would be satisfied.
I want to thank TSCA for this opportunity: I hope you are proud of the ways we have worked towards strengthening the bonds between Torrance and Kashiwa, between cities and people.
Matthew: I am proud of the things we have built and done together, both at Ichikashi and as friends. I hope that you remember to take the time to make the remainder of your time at Ichikashi one that you think back on with fond satisfaction and peace. Eighteen months is both a short while and an eternity. I am excited to hear of the things you are going to do over the coming year as sempai. You will be a good sempai. You better be a good sempai.
Stephanie: Soon it will be your turn to open the book and begin to write your own story on your own blank page. But you do not receive an empty book; you inherit a journal that was first opened 30 years ago, into which 40 teachers before you poured. And you will hand this heavy book to the person who follows.
Think to write a story of which you will be proud. But because Ichikashi is a place of endless excitement and incredible opportunity, think to pen lines that will bring you joy. And show your growth.
The Ichikashi campus is shaped like a ring, around whose center resides an empty lot and a stage. For most of the year the courtyard stands empty, save for the dozen or so cars that use it for parking.
Your entire tenure at Ichikashi will be this way: your work is your work and it is the very reason you are sent here, and it is the thing about which you will spend most of your time thinking. But the core of which, this large empty lot, is ambiguous space that you can fill and use as you wish. You can fill it with cars or junk or dust, or you can fill it with purpose and challenge. My only advice is to think about how you want to fill that space because that will help shape every decision you are likely to make, and how you will likely grow. Or not grow.
For all of its opportunities and all of its charm, no one in Kashiwa will make it a point to challenge you to remember to invest in yourself and your personal development. So it will be up to only you to ensure that you leave Ichikashi with anything more than just fond memories.
But, oh, what memories.
Ichikashi, Kashiwa: thank you for the memories. And I hope these won't be the last.
But even if they are, what remains is perfect.
