Saturday, Apr. 10, 2004 - 4:52 pm
Um... I'm sorry.
This relationship just isn't working for me.
I'm at www.dailypreciousness.org now. So change that bookmark.
I was jumping into trousers and tossing toes into socks that morning as I tried to count the times I'd been part of a parade. Every year at O-bon, the festival of lights, the gaggle of revelers would invite me to join in the fun.
I don't ever remember it being planned – there were no exchanges of e-mails or embossed invitations. It was just impromptu parading. Except, of course, when I painted the devil's nose.
It was my last year in Koyasan, the little mountaintop retreat where I lived and taught and learned for three years.
I shared ikebana class at the nearby retirement home with a handful of the local junior rotary club. Amongst arrangements of tulips and trumpet vines, I got invited to join in the creation of the town festival's parade floats. I accepted.
A few nights later, I found myself feasting on toasted mochi and drinking canned aisu cohii (iced coffee) while I painstakingly dotted ink onto the teeth of a fierce dragon float. Slinky and snake-like, the dragon was quite a sight. "This is going to look great," I remember thinking, as I dipped my brush into the tempura paint. I was right. The blood-colored oni had a big nose (much like foreign devils, such as myself).
Of course, I had to help paint his nose, since I was the acknowledged expert at big noses. Just above his devilish grin, I touched up the nostril and nosetip area. I spent at least a few hours doing this. I wanted to get it just right. And I did.
By the day of the parade, I'd made about a dozen new friends and spent twice as many hours preparing the artwork. It was a great feeling to work and create with these cheerful and out-going twenty-somethings. What a friendly group! Miyoko was the warmest. She probably never knew it, but getting to know her was one of my best experiences while in Japan.
Over many months, her personality simmered up to the guarded surface. Discovering her quick wit and innocent exuberance was a time-consuming, onion-peeling process – more so than I ever would have expected. And she actually introduced me to one of the most mysterious people I'd ever met while I was there... her grandmother. The 83-year-old had never seen a Caucasian person before. Except, of course, when she was very young and had met a soldier during the occupation.
The small piece of chocolate candy that a G.I. handed to her had stuck in her memory all these years. "When I see you – with those blue eyes – I can recall the sweet taste of American chocolate!" That comment brought a smile to my face. We spoke of the war and drank mugi-cha tea while the cicadas screeched outside by the light of the half moon.
Miyoko's grandmother was happy to make the acquaintance of a second American. I remember wishing, as we drove up the winding mountain trail back into town, that I had known to bring her some Hershey's.
The evening of the parade, the Chinese style dragon shimmered a dazzling emerald green with fiery yellow eyes. It glowed menacingly at dusk during the procession. The scales were green and the space in between the scales was white, so it was the part that glowed brilliantly. Miyoko marched just ahead of me. She was giddy and cherry blossom pink after the three CHU-HIs (sweet potato cocktails). Right in front of us was a 20-foot representation of the saint Kobo-daishi. Seated in the lotus position, hair long and flowing like a girl's, he was beatific and graceful. The image was of a very young Kobo-daishi – probably around 10 years old.
The glowing pink kimono cast an other-worldly glow on the red-faced oni (devil) and the slinking dragon. Round white lanterns with ancient Sanskrit letters bobbed up and down to the chanting of our march. People sang the traditional parade song over and over, which included so many old Japanese words and such obscure grammar that it might have well been Chinese, for all I could tell.
I was waving to the crowds that lined the parade, walking with the Kobo-daishi when Miyoko leaned over and touched my hand. It was a small gesture... but highly significant in such a touch-averse culture. And so public! I was stunned by the intimate feeling and shocked that she would do it front of the entire town. My mind flooded with questions: Did she have feelings for me? Did I have feelings for her? How could I have feelings for her? Seriously – she's a girl – I don't have feelings for her, do I? Oh my God, I think I might actually have –
But then I realized what she meant.
The float was going under a power line and she was trying to get me to touch the bamboo part of the float instead of the wire mesh. She was merely protecting the foreigner from being electrocuted. Thank goodness for her concern, too. I could've been just as brown and toasted as that mochi that we'd shared a few weeks before.
That was my most memorable experience in a Japanese parade, strolling alongside the sweet, cherub-faced Miyoko, smiling in the pink light cast by a 20-foot 10-year-old Kobo-daishi. A constellation of Sanskrit lanterns swung in the breeze and the parade music echoed from around the corner of the tatami shop.
The evergreen trees wavered in the whispering breeze. "The nachuraru eyacon (natural air conditioning)," as the townsfolk called it, was doing a good job of keeping us cool. Miyoko smiled at me and said that we were past the power line. "You can put your hands on the metal rail now," she told me, gingerly taking my hands and putting them back to where they were supposed to be... next to hers. I looked back and it seemed – if just for a moment -- that the bright red oni behind us was grinning more devilishly than usual.
Maybe he was.
