冬越しってこんなに大変だったん？！！

アーミッシュおじさんのところに越してきて、６ヶ月目、いよいよハードルが超高い冬越しが始まる。なぜ「超高い」のかというと、今までもハードルは高かったが、それにも増して高いという意味だ。今まではといえば、例えばこういう感じ。

入居してすぐに雨漏り（５ヶ月間治らなかった）、騒音、キッチンシンクの水道の水の温度や量の調整ができない、両手でお皿を洗えない、シンクから出るパイプがとても細いダメ、詰まりやすい、トイレは水がもったいないので頻繁に流さないでと言われるし、シャワーの熱いお湯は出る量が限られているため、ポータブルなお風呂を用意しても水がたまらない（よって、お風呂なし）、ガスレンジはキャンプで使うようなミニコンロにミニプロパンをつけた状態でクッキング（よって、手の込んだ料理は無理）、冷蔵庫は小さいのを貸してくれたが、結局もう少し大きいのを自分で買う羽目に（普通アメリカの家具付きアパートを借りた場合、キッチンの大きな電化製品は全部付いている）、下でおじさんが頻繁にする洗濯のかなりきつい化学薬品入りの洗剤の匂いが上の私のスタジオに満喫（私が化学薬品なしの船内をホームメード）、スタジオは一面がガラス張りで近所の家がすぐそこなので、カーテンを作って吊るしていたら（ちなみにスタジオで吊るしたカーテンは全部で２０枚ほど。それほどここのおじさんは、オープンなガラス張りが大好き）、「太陽が入って来ないから暖かくないよ。田舎は都会と違って、近所の人が人の家を覗き込むことはないよ！」と厳しく諭され、しかもそのうちの一つは三角で、「三角の窓がなかなか見つからないんだよねー」と、その部分だけ開けっぱなし（鳥や蜂やハエがじゃんじゃん自由に出入り。閉めてというと、本当に鳥が入って来なくていいのかと聞かれた！）、荒ゴミは近所のおじさんの友達の飼っている豚に持っていったりよその畑の堆肥の中に入れたりと策を考えた苦難の挙句、庭に穴を掘って入れるもプロセスせずにすぐ一杯になり、「野菜、植えてもいいよ」と言われるもこのおじさん、実は自分で野菜を育てる人ではなく、前にお世話になっていたホームステダー（自給自足生活を営んでいる人）のところから持ってきた苗や植物は枯れてしまい、。。。などなど。おじさんの「住んでもいいよ、スペース貸してあげるよ。」の意味がこういうことだったとは！何度も、「もう無理！家賃払ってるのに水も使えないしお風呂にも入れない、料理も満足にできない！」と思ったが、そのうちに、あーそうなんだ、彼の「住むところを提供する」コンセプトは、私の知っている環境での「アパートを貸す」とはだいぶん違うんだなとわかってきた。「アパートを貸す」のではなく、「住むところを今から徐々に作るから、住めるようになったら家賃を払って。」なので、「住めるように」は完璧に住む環境が整っているというわけではない。いわゆる「骨組み」だけだ。時間をかけてじっくり完成させていくその途上のスペースに住まわせてもらっているというわけだ。なるほどね！とほんの少し納得。それにしても、これで家賃７万は高くない？

そして、冬はまた全く別問題だ。

ペンシルバニアのこのあたりは冬が非常に厳しいため、（日本で言うと北海道でまだ雪も降っていない頃から雪が降り、11月から氷点下、最後の霜は大体5月の終わり）冬だけ暖かいところに住む人が少なくない。フロリダやアリゾナなど、暖かい場所にもう一つ住居を持っていて、そこに住むと言うのが普通のようだ。ここのアーミッシュおじさんも冬は決まってコスタリカやニカラグアの別荘に住んでいる。でも、私にはそういう家も予算もないので、ここペンシルバニアにいるしかない。そういうわけで、アーミッシュおじさん、今までずっと夏仕様で使ってきた自分の家の一つ（いくつも持っている）を冬仕様に準備してくれたのだ。断熱材を入れて、毛布やクッションで穴をカバーして、空気が入ってくる隙間を防ぎ、あとはプロパンを二階に引いて、ストーブと繋げると言う作業。私の借りているスタジオと寝室は続いていて、どちらにもプロパンストーブを入れてくれた。

と、ここまでは良かったのだが、ある日、屋根から水滴が。。。しかも一箇所ではなく、雨も降っていないのに多数の箇所に水滴が落ちてくるのだ。また雨漏り？でも雨降ってないのにねー。。。と思う思わぬうちにピタパタと水滴は落ちてくる。慌てておじさんを呼ぶと、彼は扇風機を持って現れた。「これ、どうしてかわかる？屋根じゃないよ。」とニンマリ笑うおじさん。スタジオのストーブを夜消してしまうと、部屋が寒くなる、次の日にストーブをつけると、部屋が暖まり、冷たい空気が水になって落ちてくる、屋根に断熱材が入ってないからと説明してくれた。えー！と言うことは、夜中ストーブをつけていないといけないと言うこと？！！！ここいらでは、ストーブの使用量によっては、月に暖房費が５、６万かかることも珍しくない。その費用を節約するために、私はスタジオの暖房をできるだけ切るようにしていた。夜は特に、誰も使ってないし。それが、このピタパタ落ちてくる水滴を作り出していると言うのだ。あれ？でもおじさん確か、暖房費節約したかったら、寝室だけつけとけば良いよって言ってなかったっけ？じゃあどうすればいいんですか？「これがペンシルベニアの性（さが）でねえー。あんたも悪いことは言わないから、冬にコスタリカやニカラグアにきた方がいいよ。もう家賃払ってるからタダで家に住んで良いよ。暖房費払うぐらいだったら、南米に悠に２−３か月住めるよ。」とおじさん。見ていると、扇風機で暖かい空気を上から下に回してみようと、早速ハシゴを持ち出してきて、扇風機を設置。１時間後、だいぶん部屋が温まってきた。でも、この扇風機、音がうるさいんですけど。。これ、どのぐらいつけとけば良いの？予期せぬときに、水がピタパタ落ちてくるのも困るけど、扇風機付けっ放しも困るよ。お客さんも来るんだし。さあ、これ、どうやって解決するのでしょうか？

日本の空は何故こんなにも低いのだろう？

日本の空は何故こんなにも低いのだろう？ずっとここに住んでいると、そうも感じないかもしれないが、アメリカの壮大な田舎に住んでいるせいか、日本の空がとても低く感じる。地面が空を自分の方に引っ張っているみたい。あまりに低くて押しつぶされそうだ。手を伸ばせば届きそうな空に覆われた空間は密で複雑で、そこに住む人々は､いかに限られた空間を使うかを常に考えている。低い空の下に家が立ち並び、森がそびえ、建物がひしめきあい、田んぼが広がる。東京のような都会はもとより、田舎でさえも、凝縮感を覚えるのだ。山や森、川や家、人や道や建物や車といった全ての要素が、まるでパズルのようにきちんとはまっていて、相互関係を確立しているその様子は、驚くばかりだ。そして、空間は言葉と呼応する。4年間のブランクの後、日本を訪問していたときよく耳にした言葉は、「寄り添う」と「思いやる」。二つとも日本では、とても大事なコンセプトだが、実はどちらも英語に訳しにくい。「寄り添う」ー　‘stay beside’? ‘「思いやる」ー　‘think/feel for another’? 英語だとはっきりするのが、これらの言葉は、自分以外の誰かに働きかけることを示唆しているということだ。でも、日本語の「思いやる」や「寄り添う」行為では、自分と相手との境界線が曖昧になる。そこには自分も自分以外をも含む大きな共同体の存在が感じられる。この共同体の中では、「迷惑をかけず」「助け合う」美徳が重んじられ、それは、暗黙の中、言葉だけでなく、空間や人間関係、生き方までも形作っていく。低い空は、こうした相互関係をしっかりと地面にアンカーさせるのに必須なのだろう。そこに現れる空間は、ウエットで心地よく、浦島太郎の竜宮城のごとく魅惑的だ。一度入るともう二度と離れたくなくなるような非常にアブナイ空間でもある。

Surface (2)

Today was probably one of the coldest days this winter here in Baltimore. One digit. As I move on the surface of snow, wind blows with force, hitting my body without mercy. One step, another step, running becomes a slow dialogue with snow and wind. Wind still keeps coming and the exposed skin of my face manages to responds by hardening its surface. I'm almost out of breath. My feet receives the freezing coldness of snow, slowly becoming numb. The boundary between inside of my body and outside stimuli becomes blurry. My whole body starts tilting forward to compliment wind and snow. It's a strange dance. I think of people who lose their lives in the severe snow in mountains. I think of a Japanese ghost story, YUKIONNNA (snow woman) and how the travelers get wrapped up by her white kimono as they embark on their journey to the other shore. I embrace snow's shamanic mischief.

A lesson from the 'unexpected'

'Unexpected' events hold great potentials for growth regardless of our judgement of them. When I face an unexpected event, I can observe my reaction on multi-levels: my physical response to the event, psychological, emotional one, and how my brain starts to repair the damage these responses caused. I'm always astounded to see the brain's strategy to use the patterns learned in the past. And this is exactly what I think as counterproductive. When we see life on a large scale, most things don't proceed exactly as we had imagined. In fact, this is what makes life so potent. But somehow, most of us are not used to dealing with the 'unexpected'.

Surface

There is something special to run on the icy surface. I need to balance my feet in a certain way. Not to hang on to the ground too much. Not to put too much pressure. I put a little more weight on the right edge, then the left edge, then the center, the front, and the back. This dance with my feet continues one step after another. Instead of making an effort to move forward, I'm in every moment, going up and down, enjoying the contact with the ground, having a dialogue with my weight sinking in and lifting from the slippery surface.

My child inside

I've been on a journey to reunite with my child inside me. For a long time she has been hiding from me, with her back against me. I enter into myself carefully, with a calm mind and body, leaving the whole 'thinking' behind. My left brain calms down and my right brain starts being fully activated. My body slowly starts remembering what is was like to really feel. All of a sudden, my feet sink into the earth. with each step, many different parts of my feet scream. The trees start revealing their texture and their true personalities. Without touching, I can feel what it's like to touch them. Sensation takes over me. I FEEL them. Vivid colors start entering into my eyes without my trying to look at them. I'm EXPERIENCING the color. I start seeing patterns. Everything I become contact with becomes more and more vivid. Vital energy. I dive into myself. I knock the door and call her. I extend my hand towards her and slowly start pulling my little girl out of the dark small hideout. I can almost feel it. That aliveness. That vital energy which used to make me feel that anything was possible. Continuous flow of curiosity. Inner, deeply satisfying excitement. I'm gradually reuniting with her. My girl is smiling at me. Invincible.

本当のこと

本当のことに気づく為にはたくさんの勉強が必要だ。強靭な洞察力。そして最後には自分で判断しなければならない。その自分とは何か、そこから始まるのだ。どこまで遡ればいいのか。自分と世界が本当に見えるようになるには。空っぽだと思っていたのは錯覚ではなかった。全く空っぽだったのだ。自分がそこに居ない時、幻想とランデブーするのは易しい。ああ、こういう事にずっと昔に気づいていれば無駄な時間を過ごさずにすんだだろうに。大事なことはいつも見逃す近くにところにあったのだ。いや、まだ遅くはない。遠く、深く、広く、ある時は緻密に又ある時は緩く、一瞬一瞬が最大限の可能性を持つような生き方が出来れば、表現するものも本当に少しは近づくのかもしれない。 In order to grasp the real truth, one has to have resilient and piercing insights. In the end, it is only one person who can make the final decisions - self. What is self? This is the beginning of everything. Research. How far should I go back? To high school? To kindergarten? Or back to the womb? Or even before? How can I see the relationship between myself and the world? The vast hollowness was quietly screaming  inside. When one is not really there, it is easy to rendez-vous with illusions.  The most important thing was always in the nearest place to me only to be overlooked. Perhaps it's not too late. As far as possible, as deep as possible, as vast as possible, sometimes meticulously and precisely, and other times loosely and gradually, if I can live in the way every moment is open to maximum potential, then and only then what I express might approach a bit closer to what is real.

Shining faces

The bamboo dish drainer I had been fond of for quite some time finally gave in and had to retire. Having been not so happy with the fact that the tray for the dish drainer tends to stain the counter, I decided to take advantage of this situation and see what it's like to dry dishes without a drainer. First I placed them on a dry towel on a kitchen counter since I saw my German friends do that in Berlin. This method worked for a day or so, but I realized that the odor of wet towel reverted and permeated the dishes. No more towel method. So if down is no good, what about up? I simply placed the dishes with their open sides up on the counter and hoped that they would be dry. No more odor. However, the dishes didn't dry in one day. It usually took about two to three days for an any given dish to be dry. Wow, I thought, this is a very primitive way of drying dishes. The ultimate method of natural dryer. My appreciation for a dry dish increased triple since it meant that I can put it away or use it. I've also started minimizing the number of dishes I use every day. Having been inspired by the solid blue dish drainers which dried countless dishes day after day at CESTA, I finally purchased a simple small dish drainer with a tray. About twenty minutes after I piled up the wet dishes, they were completely dry showing their beautiful shining faces without a drop of tears.

What an incredible invention.

weight of form

I just got back from a week of rehearsals and performances of an English Noh Play, "Crazy Jane". Along with the play, two short dance pieces were presented each night and I was given one piece to dance on Friday night. It has been five years since I participated in an intensive training of Noh, so naturally, I felt rusty and under-prepared, which I had expected. What I didn't expect was the revelations I had while I practiced the dance being in half-panic state.

The most potent moment visited me when I was rehearsing by myself in the studio a day before the performance. At that point, I had the sequence memorized and had a pretty good idea of how the song matched the dance. (In Noh dance, movements and singing are in a close relationship to each other. If you don't know the song well, you can't dance well.) I wanted to reach the place where I can actually feel and dance the dance.

As I worked on my dance in an empty quiet space, my body started remembering the power that resided in every aspect of noh. Because I was re-learning the form, so to speak, this time I was starting to understand more about the reasons for various details - why jo-ha-kyu, why small steps, what happens when you restrain, why arms move in certain sequences and why all these things are important to make the dance work. I also began to realize when all elements are executed, strong energy starts circulating through one's body and connecting with the energy of the universe. Through extreme minimalism, this energy becomes distilled to the purest primal state and gets transmitted to the audience. As I kept dancing, I began to feel this energy inside my body, moving it to the next step, and the next step. The air around me started shifting and I started being in contact with the invisibles. (perhaps this is the reason why contact between the performers is minimal in noh?)

This resonates with what I have  been striving for in my own work - maximum evocation with minimal stimuli. The work transcends what a performer does or who he is  (visibles) and rises into a large encompassing universe. But to achieve this, you need to perfect the form with precision. In a sense, it seems that the performer is 'borrowing' the form to reside in the spirit of the Noh character.

I  renewed my appreciation for the depth of this traditional art form and was glad to be able to 'feel' the form through the body rather than 'understand' it through the head.

sound of no sound

Issui Minegishi is a ichigenkin (one-string instrument) player from Japan. I met her in NY through my director friend. She mentioned how challenging it is to manipulate the one string to create music. One of the things she is focusing on right now is to listen to the silence after the sound is gone. It seems already minimalistic given that it is only one string which is producing sound, but she wants people to listen to the sound after the sound is gone. This ultimate minimalist approach resonated with me. In Japanese,  'ma' (the space between) is honored in every aspect of life. In studying ookawa (Noh hip-drum) a little, I learned that vocal calls and rhythm are much more important than the actual sound you make. Rhythm of course means the 'sound' part and 'no sound' part. Vocal calls fill in the 'no sound' part. And this 'no sound' part goes with the arm movements. Extremely acute sense of listening is required to listen to this 'ma'. Some also say that 'ma' is where the spirits reside. It seems like the portal to the eternal world. When you honor this space more than the 'filled' space, the sound is much fuller and the 'no sound' gets awaken, creating the equisite  harmony.

Beautiful garden

Recently, I saw Tarkovsky's "Sacrifice". As usual, I was drawn into this long movie with no effort. This movie, which was the last piece of work by him, is full of stories told by the characters. Not much happens through actions. One of the stories stood out for me. The protagnist starts talking about his sick mother who always sat by the window which looked down the garden. He tells his friend how much she enjoyed seeing the garden. Being a good son, he wanted to clearn it up for her birthday. While his mother was getting weaker and having to stay in her bed, he kept working on the garden, trimming the trees and mowing the grass. The garden was ready. Being extremely proud and excited, he sat by the window to look over the garden. With a painful look on his face, he confesses to his friend, " it was disgusting." Being changed through a man's hands, the garden has lost its wild nature.

Threshold

I removed one of the 'noren's in the house today for the wash. Noren is a Japanese curtain that hangs anywhere from one foot to several feet down from the top of the door opening towards the ground. It covers certain amount of the opening  from one room into another. After removing it, I noticed a dramatic difference in the degree of revelation. This particular noren covered about 1/3 of the door opening from my bedroom to the kitchen. Because of this 1/3, certain parts or the room I was entering was covered completely. Of course, when you go through the threshold and enter into the kitchen, what is covered by the curtain gets revealed, but it seems that something happens in the moment you go through the threshold. First of all, since this 'noren' covers 1/3 of the door, you are only seeing 2/3 of what is in the next room. So you are not perceiving what is in the upper 1/3 of the room. Somehow, when you go through the noren, some kind of magic happens to change your perception. After entering into the room, the upper 1/3 of the room gets revealed in a different light. What was hidden gets revealed in a completely different look. This is, of course, part of the aesthetics of the hidden and obscured.

As I was experiencing this change, I remembered what I read in the architecture book about the size of the door in old Japanese houses. The doors in old Japanese architecture are made very small and low. In order to go through, you have to crouch down quite a bit. (I remember that I used to hit my head a number of times, forgetting the size of the door even if I can actually see the size with my eyes.) The reason why the door is so small and low is because of the belief that there is another world in the space after you go through the threshold. It was also believed that a spirit goes through small openings, not big openings.

08

Mary-webster dictionary gives the following meanings for the word 'threshold'"

1: the plank, stone, or piece of timber that lies under a door : sill2 a: gate, door b (1): end, boundary ; specifically : the end of a runway (2): the place or point of entering or beginning : outset <on the threshold of a new age>3 a: the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins to be produced <has a high threshold for pain> b: a level, point, or value above which something is true or will take place and below which it is not or will not

The last one ' a level, point, or value above which something is true or will take place and below which it is not or will not'. Is it ok to think 'above' is beyond and 'below' is here? So after going through the threshold, I will be in a place where something is true or will take place? If that's the case, it makes so much sense that the opening, the threshold is small and challenging to go through in order to be in the place truth is going to be revealed. I cannot wait to get back my noren to make this opening smaller.

Definition of professional

I've been thinking about the definition of  'professional'.

The other day, I went back to my favorite liquor store to exchange a bottle of red wine. This is rather unusual since there is usually a wine specialist I've acquainted well with and he is very thorough and accurate about his recommendation. However, this bottle I purchased was through someone else's advice. Luckily, I located this wine specialist whom I don't know very well and explained the situation. The wine was too sweet. When I first brought it up, he seemed to be in disbelief. Then I remembered how confident he was when suggesting this particular brand over the other one I had liked in the past. Without hiding his disbelief, he bluntly said, "you can choose another one." After picking up the one I always liked, he guided me to the casher and glanced at the bottle I picked up. "You like that one and not this one?" "this one is too sweet" "it's not sugar sweet and this one is smoother" "I'm just used to drinking this other one." Throughout this exchange, he kept looking unsatisfied as if I knew nothing about wine.

Recommending a certain taste to someone you don't know very well is tricky. I remember the wine specialist I've acquainted in this same store and how he approached his work as an advisor. He always listened to me very carefully and selected several bottles and gave me very detailed explanation about each one. From the second visit and on, he remembered my face and came to help me with the selection. And his selection always hit the mark. I compared these two specialists and wondered why this new one was less successful in 'discovering and satisfying' my preference, which is his job. Perhaps it has something to do with 'service' - the spirit to 'serve' people. In order to truly serve people, you have to examine your ego. You have to disappear in service of others' needs. It requires deep study of the information you are sharing. It also requires deep study of who the people are you are serving. It's not an easy job to be a wine specialist. Whenever I am with my favorite wine specialist, I feel well taken care of. I have the trust and can even enjoy other conversations with him since I'm not worried if the one he recommends would be overpriced or not suited for my palate. He has cultivated an air to ease the customer who comes to his store, share his knowledge, and always gives room for the customer to make a decision. I sense his pride in his work. I haven't yet had to return anything he recommended to me, but if that ever happens, I'm sure what he would do is to listen to me, consult me, bring three more options to choose, and say, "don't hesitate to bring it back if you don't like it". He sure is in my eyes, a true professional.

I encountered another professional on TV. A while ago, I watched how an autism specialist works with children in a TV program called "Professional." She had opened a center, like a nursing home, where the autistic children can stay and spend time with other autistic children and the caretakers. There was one impossible child who kept escaping from this home. Noone seemed to have a solution to solve this child's problem. His manner was violent and his situation was clearly severe. After about the third escape of the day, the reporter asked the specialist, "what are you going to do now?" Without changing her facial expression a bit, she replied," I'm going to keep working with him until he becomes well because I'm a professional. I will never give up."

Am I professional? When things don't go well, am I not finding the excuses? Am I not making a leeway for myself? Being a professional means  to be able to take responsibility for your work. Professional means to pursue the goal of your work no matter how long it takes or how complex it is. Also, professional means to think about your work and its relation to the people who are affected by your work. It means to invest in the question, 'what is the relationship between my work and the world's present?'

Proof of existence

I participated in Dance Hakushu Festival last summer in Hakushu, Japan. As I was reading some of the e-mail exchanges amongst the staff members, I ran into one of this year's participants' blog. He was someone I had known from almost 19 years ago in Japan. At that time, he and dance seemed inseparable. I firmly believed that he was going to dance until the end of his life. I myself was just starting to make a serious commitment to the 'act of dance' and 'performance' without thinking too much about motivation or meaning. I clearly remember the time he faced me and asked me this question in a serious manner: "why do you have to dance?" He told me how 'he could not live without dancing". Dance was a proof of his existence. I didn't understand what he had meant at that time. Now I'm slowly starting to understand it. When asked, "what do you dance for?" after one of  his performances at PS 1 in November 2007, Min Tanaka answered, "first for myself, then for others, but I'm always in need of others's eyes." When I cast that same question onto myself, do I have an answer now?  I dance to explore. What is possible? Where is the boundary? Limit? How does inside and outside co-exist? How does past, present, and future co-exist in my body, through my body? How can I disappear and exist at the same time? How can I transcend this body? What is self? How do you reach ego-less body? Can I go there or am I staying here?

Dance is a quest to find the answers to myself. Answers to my existence. My existence in relation to the universe. The existence of the universe. It is a way to investigate what it means to exist. For me, it is a way to examine what this whole thing means, not to prove it.

In the blog, this dancer mentioned that he hadn't danced for quite a while since his ways of proving his existence has been shifted to his other business. After calling this opportunity his 'last time to dance', he casts a question, 'I wonder what might happen if I dance now. Would this really become the last time or not?" I wonder if this occasion is going to become a trigger to shake and move his existence and if that's the case, I wonder if the reason for him to dance might now be to find himself, not to prove himself.