THE ONCE AND FUTURE YOU

Being among kids is great for the joy supply, since kids can generate joy like oceans generate waves. When they’re infants, they can distill joy right out of the air, just by lying there and looking around. As they get older though, the process gets complicated by the many and various artificial joys that now await us all at birth. 

By the time modern infants are fully grown, they have encountered most of the complex array of add-ons that comprise civilized life nowadays, and if they have been so inclined - and so permitted - they have learned to look out, learned what to look out for, learned to be selective in their joys.  They know by now that natural joy is unalloyed.

Artificial joy can be fun - it can be fast, sweet and intoxicating - but being volatile and otherwise unstable, sooner or later it vaporizes or decays, often leaving a sticky, troublesome residue. If, out of one habit or another, your life tends more and more in that direction, the gooey result can in time leave you with a frown beyond understanding.

One big trick in modern life is to hold on to, honor and maintain the continuous you, your living source of pure joy, the kind you were born with, that smiled you as an infant.

JOURNAL ENTRY, December 2007

Yesterday Kaya and I went out to trim the plum tree. I got the ladder, saws and pruning shears; Kaya, nearly 7, likes the wheelbarrow, so she was in charge of that. The plan was, as I trimmed the small branches from the plum tree, Kaya would take them, clip them down to manageable size and put them in the wheelbarrow; when it was full, she would wheel the twigs over to the garden and dump them beside the compost pile.

So there we were-- I up on the ladder among the bare plum branches and Kaya standing beside the wheelbarrow with everything -- ready to go, but it seemed to seem to Kaya that something wasn't quite right, some essential was missing -- she realized what it was, ran into the house and came back out a few seconds later carrying her toy mouse, which she placed just where it belonged in the wheelbarrow. Now everything was ready.

But all plans carry seeds of change. As Kaya was doing her part with the plum twigs, she suddenly had an even better idea than our original one: she began to use the just-right pieces to build a fine house in the wheelbarrow for her mouse to live in, using the larger twigs for the frame and the smaller ones for the roof, with some nice roundish green leaves as shingles against the rain and snow, and who was I to object, from such a way-up-in-a-plum-tree perspective? From my view as material supplier, though the process was slowed by this radical redirection, the new architecture was attractive and functional. When the structure was completed it was getting dark, the plum tree had been trimmed - a little bit, anyway - the mouse was snug in the aptly named Wheelbarrow Mousehouse and it was time for night.

We're always asking heaven for more time, aren't we-- and there it is in front of us all along, right where we wanted it.

LITTLE GIRLS IN A GARDEN

I remember when the twins Mitsuki and Miasa were about 4 years old, we were doing garden work and I handed each of them a rake. They looked at the huge objects in their hands the way I would look at a 50-quon Grongorch from the Gas Jungles of Saturn, then their eyes turned to me with a glint of a hint at what a bonehead I was, for assuming that one is born knowing how to use whatever a "rake" is. 

This characteristic of mine doesn't seem to diminish as I get older. The other day I and the twins (now 10 years old) were out in the same garden and I gave each of them a packet of spinach seeds, showed them the new furrows I'd made, asked them to plant the seeds about 2 cm apart, said we could thin them later. 

They started at opposite ends of the long rows and worked toward each other, reaching into their packets and carefully lifting out just one seed at a time, grasping it softly between two fingertips, like a tiny egg, then reaching down and placing it gently upon the soft cushion of soil - just there - like putting a tiny doll to bed, then patting it into place with the end of a loving finger, taking each seed at its true value, even tucking it in with a little earthy blanket, then extracting the next seed in all the same way and placing it, as precisely as possible by eye, about 2 cm down the row. The rows of seeds filled slowly, but perfectly. 

With a row-and-a-half per twin, it took quite a while to get all the seeds arranged in comfort and sleeping softly, but M&M seemed to enjoy it, they were fully absorbed and far away, and I'll bet it was all worth it: that spinach will be the happiest, most nourishing, spiritually balanced and tastiest spinach I've ever grown.

But it was a rarer treasure to watch the twins in those natural moments, of the patient and caring kind that only free-range kids seem able to embody in this fast-forward world; all the more precious to the lucky elder nearby who has to go far back in his own museum to get hold of anything that real anymore, the way real used to be, that now seems to live mainly in fading recollection... 

The pure breath of life, these little girls, who still wear the aura of the eternity whence they came, still live in a when where each new thing is impeccably new, infinite with possibilities and deserving of tenderest care without embarrassment, up to a point; I was a boy, myself...

Heart's Horizons

We selected some healthy looking, good-sized vines about a half-inch thick at the base where they rose from among the thick mountain bamboo to latch onto the trunks and lower branches of cedars and oaks, then lace their way into the upper reaches. I clipped the chosen vines near the ground (3 vines and a backup).

 Then we put on our strong gloves, grabbed hold of the end of each vine and pulled hard - 4, 6, even all 8 hands at a time - then pulled again, then again with a "Heave-ho," and again, leaning backward in the middle of the road, pulling hard, bending the low branches! Shaking the whole tree! Then bending high branches! Then pulling more slowly as the high vine began to come away, even bending the whole tree sometimes!

Working together, pulling another long vine down out of a big cedar or oak tree -- pulling harder and harder as slowly the whole vine surrendered, at last coming away until it was laying in the road and Trio had done that great thing, with the high tree, all the way up the tree and now they had to handle that 15-meter vine from high in those branches-- Kids LOVE to do really BIG things!

 Kaya, Mitsuki and Miasa were going to make Christmas wreaths.

A couple of weeks before, while we were doing some winter prep work out in the garden and surrounds, Mitsuki had said, mid-task, out of the blue - as the Trio seems to do these days - that she wanted to make a wreath. I asked her where that idea had come from. She answered "Christmas!" which answered my question well enough; one can't really expect grown-up-minded explanations from little girls, who live so much in their hearts.

 Since the Trio and I were finished enough with our prep labors I went and got the clippers, a saw, a big basket and 8 strong gloves, then we went down the inner road, where I know there are a lot of longstanding, well-developed vines of fujii (wild wisteria) and akebi (akebia trifoliata) among the trees and bamboo.

 Once the vines were down, the Trio trimmed them, coiled them, tied them with the tendrils and put them in the basket, along with shiny clusters of holly leaves that also grow by the road. They got some good evergreen branches too, plus some perfect pine cones from my pine cone stash in the shed.

Back home, they got the tree ornaments and some ribbon from the closets, then sat out on the deck with the scissors and all those bright things scattered around them. I showed them how to choose a length for the wreath size they wanted, how to coil the strong vine into a wreath size, how to fix it here and there along its length using the thinner tendrils, and that this was the way you could make baskets too - fujii vine is great for baskets - then I went upstairs for a while to do some editing and forgot about the time--

 When it was growing dark I came downstairs into a silent house, saw the Trio still outside working even in the the darkling cold, engrossed in the task of crafting their very first wreaths, absorbed in the art of it. I just stood there watching the design ideas flow, turned on the lights when it began to get too dark. The Trio went on working until they were content with their basic wreaths and went inside to fine-tune the decorations.

 Natural ways, natural tasks involving natural interests like the endlessness of seeds, branches and flowers, insects and animals - instead of only brief gadgetry - simply confirm that there is no substitute for the natural reaches of life, the wellspring of thoughts and imaginings that lead always onward, with no end but the heart’s horizons.

In that spirit, Happy Holidays to All.

HOLDING NEW HANDS

Soon I will be another grandfather, when my daughter Kasumi brings her second baby into the world, a brother or sister for Kaya. In the same way that one is a new father for each of one's own children, one is a new grandfather for each new grandchild.  Another grandfather is a remarkable thing to be, as anyone knows who's ever been one; it's a special experience never twice the same, like being an elephant now and then, or a giant redwood, or a choo-choo train, mountain, horsey or pogo stick, as required, and on through the endless list you now have time for.

It's not being full-time responsibly busy on all fronts, the way parenting was; now is when you get your chance at being that more flexible ancient continuous one we all are, layered over with being whatever you can muster up right now from the mythology: sort of post-graduate parenting. Being another grandfather is a newer thing than I expected. (And what if it's a boy?)

Still, it's not as though you have to learn how to be another grandfather; if you've managed to remain genuine, and still contain the magical savor of your own childhood and parenthood (you find that out with your first grandchild), then every subsequent grandfathering should come as naturally as holding a new hand.  One is already familiar with grandfathering, and whatever you give in that capacity is returned in more than full measure.

One evening recently I was walking with 2-year-old Kaya in the light of sunset, when she pointed to the western sky and shouted: "Pink!" while jumping up and down. I hadn't looked at the sunset in that full-eyed, amazing-discovery way for 60 years and there it was again, fresh as the first time, because I was holding a new hand.

***

[Wrote this way back then (2003) but never posted it, because Kasumi had twins(!) girls(!) and it got lost in the ensument... Came across it putting the book (Monkeys & Onions) together... RB]

TA PROJECT JAPAN ASKS:

"Help us send the kids in Fukushima to camp.

Because of the Nuclear Plant Disaster, 

the lives of the children in Fukushima 

have been turned upside down. 

 Let the Kids Play!!"

LITTLE WOMEN

From one of the upstairs bedrooms these early mornings I hear the voices of little girls singing songs they have made up. The songs are good, from what I can hear and understand-- fun-themed, cutely melodic, harmoniously performed with a native expertise, and all sui generis.  A delightful augmentation of the country silence.

All those biggity surprises grandchildren bring... Back in late winter when we were building the new deck I noticed that numerous bits and scraps, odds and ends of the fine hard wood were piled up next to the stone wall in the garden where the carpenters kept their warming fire; I later learned that they were planning to burn those scraps! I requested that they save it all for me to use in various ways around the garden and in the house, and instead use some old firewood.

I had no idea what I actually might do with all those oddly shaped pieces, but when you live in the country, it's frugal city: you never throw anything away. You have to at least think about it for a few years. No casually tossing bits of wire, lengths of pipe and such-- and especially not oddly shaped scraps of wood, which given enough time will one day fit perfectly into that one-of-a-kind needspace that has arisen spontaneously (and if you have a woodstove, every bit of new wood has a bottom-line importance anyway).

Yes, to me -- he says as he begins to wax poetic right in the middle of this ongoing thought, wandering away from the apparent point as fancy takes him, as though this were a Japanese essay or something --  who over the years has frequently searched for just the odd shape of wood to fit here or there, something strong and long lasting, something with the integrity for the task, here were bushels of the very stuff! Except for the ruinated pieces, it was just too good for burning. So over the next weeks of days I now and then spent a few moments stacking the wood up in a place out  of the weather in anticipation of finding a big strong box in which to store it all until each perfect need came down time's highway.

But my handyman foresight did not include the Trio of Brio, who on their first day in the garden spotted my rough mounds of wood and began gathering it in their arms and in boxes, in baskets and buckets, bringing it all into the house where they spent all that day, all that evening and well into a few tomorrows building houses into cities with streets and railroads (Bob can I have a pencil - What for - I want to draw railroad tracks), homes with lots of rooms and all kinds of furniture for their little dolls. When I bent way down to look inside the rooms I saw for example on the face of one block a small window with flames inside-- a woodstove, with a stovepipe of wood leading upward to the playsky!

The Trio were natural living-space designers! They were, in fact, what they really are: little women!

SEEDS FOR LIFE

Bob's comment on my previous post got me thinking again about something that I've often touched upon herein in one way or another, because it is so close to my heart: the value of a home garden.

Apart from the natural wealth a garden provides as a source of the deliciousest, healthiest, freshest produce, a garden is a superb gymnasium and place of work meditation-- but perhaps most importantly, for the kids it's a gateway to the root of things, an opening to the deep reality of the world, so radical (and necessary) a departure from the illusions of TV, movies and video games as to be like water to one lost in the desert...

When the girls come to visit I right away take them to learn with their own eyes the latest news of the garden, to glimpse here and there on the dark soil, beneath the big green shady leaves, the now much bigger golden butternut squashes-- they come out of the ground!

And little hands reaching into tangles of tomato vines to get at the bright red fruits hiding there in the depths like suns in a galaxy-- how fast they fill the big basket! Then on top of those go all the slenderfinger greenbeans that only a moment ago were beckoning from their vines, saying pick me! pick me! now green on red in the basket...

The same hungry hands pull upward on a bunch of feathery leaves growing straight up from the earth beside the tomato vines, until there's a soft sound and out from the ground comes a big orange carrot, a real carrot there at the end, then another and maybe another for lunch...

We turn around and there are the tall pepper plants, where the shy peppers hide like shiny green leaves among the green leaves - a couple of those - then one of the girls looks up at the big wall of soft green growing up the net, where high up here and there hangs a knobbly goya - still too small for today though--

Then there is ginger and basil, pumpkins and sunflowers, spinach and gobo, shisso and broadbeans-- all organic, grown using the compost the girls helped gather and pile up last autumn-- as a result, fascinating insects can live here, like those ladybugs and katydids, and that big green luna moth caterpillar sandbagging on that tomato vine like they were twins, with now and then a garden snake fleeing at top speed from the approach of us huge beings, and all in good time the crows come to check out the scene, stand around and yak, and outside there are footprints of deer that wanted to get in during the night, all that fun, learning and visual delight, seeds of thought, seeds for life, things to ponder and dream about, be nourished by-- and we haven't even eaten yet, except some beans and tomatoes, right off the vine!

Then when we do have lunch or dinner, what a better taste it is, that rainbow of rightnow flavors that fill the tongue, than we'd ever get by driving the car to the mall to get medicined generic vegetables grown far away, picked three days ago and shipped here on big trucks to lay there and wait for us to buy them, no labor of love there, no relation to us or our lives other than through cash, where's the wisdom in that, a garden is a place of wisdom, too, and closeness...

How much more the girls get from all this, the real garden, of visions and knowings, of rememberings and understandings, that will serve them throughout the gardens of their own lives, seeds that they are.

THE FOOTHILLS OF REASON

Noticed this morning by the crunches underfoot, and in the clarity of sunlight, the impressive quantity of senbei chunks and nori flakes littering certain areas of the floor around the kitchen table, indicating that someone yesterday had been sitting at said table scarfing said items in some quantity-- in fact two someones, judging by the area of rampant and heedless chunkification - someones who were below the Age of Senbei, as I dubbed it during my own parenthood.

The Age of Senbei comes at about the same time as the old Catholic workhorse the Age of Reason, at which age one is qualified to go to hell. (Or heaven, the much less likely option in my case at the time-- and even now, I expect.) As you can see, I've based my age classification on more immediately useful parameters. The Age of Senbei comes a couple of years after the Age of Restaurantability-- the age at which you can take children to a restaurant without them grabbing all the condiments on the table for an essential series of physical tests.

At the Age of Senbei, which is about the age of 7, a child can eat senbei without leaving a physical record of the act all over the vicinity. If Hansel and Gretel had been pre-Senbei, they would have been found at once. Mitsuki and Miasa just turned 5, so that seat there and that seat there is where they sat, as you can easily see. Over there is where Kaya, who just turned 8, was sitting. It is clear by the floor that she is of an age.

If they were here right now, I'd have them clean it up, perhaps accelerate their growth a bit, but kids make great getaways, as the crumbs of yesterday attest. And though the trio is coming to visit in an hour or so, since this is the last day they'll be here - and anyway I trust that the twins will reach the Age of Senbei as certainly and fully as Kaya has - I will say nothing to them of the morning crunches underfoot, I'll just clean it up myself and let them be who they are at the moment, under a life system way older than history.

Which is not to say I won't eyeball M&M if they launch into any senbei-- I have reached the Foothills of Reason, after all.

OPERATING THE LOBSTER

To be perfectly honest, I've never even thought of operating a giant lobster-- who can perceive all the possibilities that life lays out before us? But when I saw that giant lobster sitting there, my inner child leaped at the prospect. Regrettably though, my outer adult was too big to fit into the crustacean. But then I've never thought about not fitting into a lobster either, so the disappointment was small one.

I'm speaking of the new Nephropida across the water, in that special section of the fantastic Lake Biwa Museum called the "Discovery Room," where kids can go unattendedly wacko while their parents collapse nearby.

Yes, in the Discovery Room there is now a giant lobster you can physically go inside of and, while looking out through the lobster's mouth, manipulate the levers in there to operate the giant claws and snap up a praying mantis bigger than my forearm, or a 20-pound pollywog - both at once, if you can swing it - those dainties are dangling temptingly right out there in front of your big bulbous eyes, just within reach of those long heavily jointed chitinous arms extending out from your spiny red carapace, deep in the imaginary sea where so much of the world's fun resides.

When we brought the grandgirls to the Museum on Sunday, Kaya headed straight for the lobster and got in line behind all the boys until at last she got to direct the beast, caught a loach or two and snagged a pollywog, but soon burned out on the deeper potential of the thing - sure it's cool, said her look, but lobster interest fades - she wandered off; then each of the twins had a go at the lobster, with about the same result. Of course they're totally children at this point in their lives, with quite a while to go before they begin to acquire their own outer adults and the restrictions/perspective that affords; still, their actions were a surprise to both of me.

Yes, the girls quickly gave up wielding those giant spiked arms with the gnarly grabbing claws at the ends!! They wandered off, stuck their heads up inside the fish tank and stuff like that, made some yarn pictures on the yarn boards, but their hearts weren't in those activities any more than they had been in the lobster.

As far as I could tell, their hearts kept pretty much out of it until they found, over in a far corner, the traditional Japanese kitchen of a hundred years or so ago, where they could do trad stuff like "slice" "daikon" and other "vegetables" etc. with a "hocho" (traditional Japanese kitchen knife) and put them in a big iron pot over a "fire" in an old-fashioned irori (fireplace) to make a nabe (stew type meal) for "dinner," and you couldn't tear the girls away from there, they made dinner over and over, fascinated at slicing not-even-real radishes with a not-even-real hocho, one twin at the edge of the girl-crowded space complaining initially to Kasumi that there was no room in the kitchen: “Mama, there's no room for me to make a nabe!”

While gazing upon that comfortingly homish scene, my outer adult couldn't help but be aware of his inner child's powerful desire to sneak away from this girl stuff and work that lobster big time.

Museums are there to teach us of the amazing aspects there are to the world and to ourselves. The lesson here appears to be that somewhere back in the history of girls there is warmth, there is comfort, there is nurturing; whereas somewhere back in the history of boys there is a giant lobster.

Which gets harder to operate as we get older.

THREE SISTERS

The Granddaughters in their kimono
for shichi-go-san in November last year.
That's Kaya (now 6) in the middle,
Mitsuki with the formally positioned hands on the left
and Miasa, the younger twin (both now 4), on the right.