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。
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.
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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.