As part of my Japanese studies, I have recently been reading Japanese proverbs. Just like English, the Japanese language is rich in these interesting and usually very old, 'nuggets' of wisdom. One that made me laugh out loud when I read it was Kon ya no shiro bakama, which literally translated into English might be "The un-dyed clothes of the dyer". The common English version of this proverb is "The shoemaker's children go barefoot."

Why did it make me laugh? Because it's talking about me and my children! No, I'm not a dyer, nor do I make shoes, but before becoming a woodblock printmaker, I spent a number of years as an English teacher. You might be surprised if I tell you that my daughters Himi and Fumi, who were both born in Canada, don't speak English! Do you think I must be a very bad teacher?

Well, of course I don't think so. There is a very good reason why they don't speak English - they live in Japan! They go to a Japanese school, all their friends are Japanese, and they are completely surrounded by 'nihongo' practically every minute of the day. The only English they hear is that which I speak, and we all know how much attention young teenage girls pay to their fathers ... not much!

Actually, as they do understand English very well, we have some very interesting conversations. I speak in English, and they reply in Japanese. Back and forth it goes ... English, Nihongo, Eigo, Japanese ... Visitors to our home watch wide-eyed. "Wonderful!" they inevitably say. "It's wonderful that your kids are so good at English!" I just smile, and don't let on that the girls have only three of the four skills: Japanese listening and speaking, and English listening.

I'm not worried about this situation at all. I think that down inside my kids' heads, English speaking ability is 'hiding', just waiting to pop out when it becomes necessary. If they choose to go to Canada or England in the future, I am confident that they will start to talk very easily. At the moment, they simply don't want to speak English. Later on, they will feel different, I am sure.

And I no longer have to feel embarrassed about this situation. I'm not an English teacher anymore. But it would be kind of nice if they showed a bit more interest in wood-block printmaking ...

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)

Even before I had kids of my own, I had pretty strong ideas about the form that a parent/child relationship should take. Of course I had been on the 'child' end of such an arrangement at one time, but in addition to my own experiences, I had also given the matter a lot of thought in its own right.

It seemed obvious to me even then, that there are two main areas influencing the development of a child. The most fundamental of these is the child's own heredity, the built-in set of capabilities/handicaps/personality that is 'programmed' in at conception. This basic 'set-up' is then modified and shaped by influences from the outside world as the child grows year by year to adulthood, and of course continues even past that point, although I think in an ever decreasing manner.

One of the most interesting and exciting mysteries of our existence is this 'heredity vs environment' question, but that's not what I'm writing about today. What I'm more concerned with at the moment, is looking at the 'environment' side of the equation, and specifically, the relationship between two parts of it: on the one hand, the parent of the child, and on the other, everything else. From the child's point of view, parents are obviously just another part of the 'outside world', but from my view as a parent, I obviously feel that I have a special role to play in the child's life.

At one time, I used to think of a parent's role in terms of 'controlling' a child's upbringing: "She will do this. She won't do that." Now that I am older and have a lot more sense, I have come to realize that the proper role is 'guiding': outlining options, and helping the child develop the ability to sort out the best course of action. (I am not speaking here of infants, but of children from say, school age upward ...) A child's inherent personality is in reality much stronger and more well-defined than I had imagined, and attempts to control it, or channel it into directions where it just will not go, are doomed to bring disaster on all parties concerned.

But even though I have relinquished my desire to 'control' my children, and am content to 'guide' as well as I can, this leaves me with some unsettling thoughts about the rest of the environment, the 'everything else' that I mentioned. What if this group is not willing to give up 'control'?

An example of what I mean, and the little event that set this little train of thought off from the station, was a visit to a restaurant the other evening. I had taken the girls to their weekly piano lesson, and when they finished, we stopped off for a bite on the way home at a Macdonalds near the music school. (Most days we eat at home, but they are not so excited about my 'cooking', and are always ready for a change, even if only Macdonalds ...) When we entered, we stood back from the counter a bit, to try and organize our thoughts about what to order, but one of the clerks beckoned us forward, "Welcome. Welcome Can I have your order, please?"

There was of course, the familiar menu listing posted up on the wall over the clerk's head, and in addition to this, many signs and posters that advertised various 'specials' and 'bargains' were scattered everywhere in view. My young daughter Fumi hesitated. It was all a bit too much for her to take in. The clerk saw the hesitation, brought out a plastic menu card from somewhere, and slapped it down on the counter, flipping it over to show that both sides were full of information. Pictures of food, descriptions, prices, were everywhere in front of Fumi's eyes. People lined up behind us, and there was noise and pressure all around. The clerk's impatience was palpable. I tried gently to make some suggestions to Fumi, but it just became too much, and she caved in and started crying. Her older sister Himi made her own order, I put in orders for myself and Fumi, and then sent the two of them upstairs into the relative peace and quiet of the seating section, to find a place for us to sit, while I waited for the food.

Now I understand very well what little Fumi-chan was going through at that counter, for I feel exactly the same pressure in that situation, and I'm an adult! What is a little nine-year old girl to do when faced with such a barrage of noise and demands? Choose! Quickly! This one! That one! Choose! People are waiting. Faster!

The environment that surrounds my daughter is very much trying to control the whole pace of her life. Somehow, the 'control knob' on the world has been set to the 'fast forward' position, and we are all forced to operate at the same frantic pace. It's not only in restaurants. I took them to see a new Disney movie a while ago, the 'Aladdin' story, and was astonished at what we saw. Or I should say, what we didn't see. Everything just went by us at such an incredible speed, that I couldn't catch even half of the dialogue, and the two kids were completely lost at sea. As for television ... Well, I see enough of this in friends' homes occasionally, to know that it's the same thing there, and this is one of the reasons why I refuse to have one in my own home.

It seems to me that children growing up now are being completely and totally manipulated by their environment into this fast-paced way of living. Although in some areas there are nominally other choices available, a slow-paced traditional Japanese restaurant for example, instead of Macdonalds, in practice finances just don't permit such options. The norm now, is just plain fast. Fumi simply has no alternative to this. Whether or not such a pace for life suits her inherent personality and abilities is of no consequence. So while I as her father, am trying to avoid controlling her and pushing her into unsuitable ways of behaviour, society as a whole is not so forgiving. She will live this way!

Although in my personal life as a woodblock printmaker, I have 'opted out' of this race, and try to live as slowly and peacefully as possible, what can I do for my children? Other than taking them away to live up in the mountains somewhere, I don't see any way to protect them from this onslaught. And of course, year by year, things only get faster and faster. I cannot escape the feeling that our society is like some mad machine, spinning faster, faster, faster, until one day it must inevitably fly apart in chaos.

But I must admit my kids don't see things that way. When we came home from that restaurant the other day, the two of them made up a little sample menu, and then practiced making hamburger orders for a while! Next time we go, Fumi will probably be ready to handle it ... I guess this means that she is adapting to the situation, and will learn to live at this pace. I suppose it's better this way, rather than living continuously with the kind of stress that she encountered that day at the restaurant.

As for me, I'm just going to 'hide' in my workshop, make woodblock prints, and avoid fast-paced, stressful situations as much as possible. I don't even like hamburgers, anyway!

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)

Are you a consumer, or are you a producer? No, no, I'm not talking about whether or not you have a job at a manufacturing company, building things. I'm talking about life in general. Are you a consumer of 'life', or a producer of 'life'? Confused? Let me try and explain what I mean.

A number of years ago, after finishing with school, I found that I didn't quite know what to do with myself. I had done various part-time jobs here and there, and had also travelled overseas for a year, seeing a bit of the world, studying music, and just generally finding my own feet. On my return to Canada, I spent a couple of months working at a summer camp, and then had to come to some kind of decision about what to do. Now actually, I had plenty of choices. I was very interested in flute playing, and a possible career as a flutist. I had recently built a few classical guitars, and was considering taking this up seriously. Before going overseas I had built and sold a few pieces of furniture, and was pondering the idea of setting up a little 'factory' to produce more. While in England I had met some people doing very interesting work re-designing flutes, and had worked with them for a while. For a number of years, I had been teaching flute and guitar, and could certainly have continued this activity. I had also been fairly active in the field of composing and arranging music. I had any number of options. So ... which one did I choose?

Well, I did none of these things. Instead, I just went out and got a job. A normal 9 to 5 job, with a paycheck twice a month. I passed over the chance to take on one of those interesting and challenging activities, and simply became a 'salaryman', just plugging myself in to a particular slot in society. Why did I do this? My only excuse now is that I was young and foolish, and didn't know any better. But it really didn't seem like such a bad idea at the time. A big part of the decision was money. I was sharing an apartment with a young lady, had to pay the rent, and of course needed food, clothing, etc. etc. But over and above this mundane aspect of the situation, was the fact that it seemed like the normal thing to do. After all, everybody has a job, don't they?

I just hadn't had the 'individuality' in me to question that concept, and I stepped easily into a life of playing a part scripted for me by others. I went to work each day, did the job as best I could, and then went home in the evening. I no longer directed my own affairs. I was a 'consumer' of a life that had been 'produced' by other people.

I'm being pretty hard on myself with this description, but actually I wasn't completely blind to this way of thinking, even back then. After all, I had a very good example right in front of my eyes every day at work - the owner of the company. This man (his name was Bill) didn't 'get' a job. This man 'made' jobs. He started with nothing, had a vision of something that could and should exist, and then went to work and created it. Bill was a 'producer' of his own life, not choosing from among a selection of ready-made patterns, but building one of his own. He may have had a hard go of it sometimes, but the difficulties were in a sense, inconsequential. What was important to him was to make his way through life in a challenging, rewarding way. It was almost irrelevant to him that as a consequence of his activities, a crowd of other people (including me) could support themselves, and that society as a whole had access to the benefits he brought to his particular sphere (in his case, high quality musical instruments for school children).

For about three years I watched all this ... and as I went through my daily work routine, I sometimes thought about these ideas. And I guess maybe I thought too much about them, because one day I went into Bill's office, and told him that I would be leaving. What was I planning on doing? Well, I didn't really know, but I had by then learned one very important thing. I knew that I wasn't going to be the type of person who could sit there 'playing the part'. I wanted to write my own script, and to carve out my own path through the world. I don't mean that I had any silly ideas about becoming 'rich and famous', but just that I wanted to do things on a self-directed basis, and not as a consumer of a life created by somebody else. I wanted to be one of the 'producers'. I was 24 years old.

Bill wished me the best, but I would certainly have been very disheartened at the time, if I could have seen into the future, to learn that nearly fifteen years would pass before I got to the stage where my 'independent' activities would earn me a living. I tried my hand at any number of different things, some successful, some less so, and I even ended up going back to work for Bill on more than one occasion. But as confused as my route may have been, and no matter how broke I sometimes became, the adventure was always satisfying. And now that I am finally well and truly established in my life as a woodblock carver and printer, I do not begrudge any of those years that I spent wandering about trying to find my way. They were not 'lost' years. They were years of growth and development.

I now have the pleasure of not only having enjoyable, rewarding work to do every day, but of knowing that my job was not given to me ... that I created it from nothing. Five years ago there was no advertisement in a Tokyo newspaper: "Wanted. Woodblock carver and printer to work in a 200-year old style, recreating a series of Edo-era prints ..." But now that position exists. It's me! (Incidentally, I have discovered that if you wish to become one of the top people in your field, there is a relatively simple way to do it. Just pick an extinct line of work!)

My two daughters are now about halfway through the basic 'growing up' stage of life, being nine and eleven years old, and of course I wonder how they will handle this situation. I don't try and push them in any particular direction. They are still very young, and when people ask them, "What do you want to be when you grow up?", they give standard answers ... nurse, school teacher, etc. etc. But just as Bill set a good example for me, so I hope I can set one for them, by showing them that the world of human activity does not have a printed 'menu', from which they must 'choose' one option, but actually is made up of a vast blank sheet, on which they are free to draw anything they choose.

I hope they will have enough imagination to think of something interesting to draw. Have you?

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

Today was a very special day. I sat in my 6-mat workroom carving woodblocks just as I do every morning, but with a special difference ... Today I felt as though my little room had been lifted into the air somehow and set down in the middle of a peaceful rural village. I was magically transported from dirty, dusty Tokyo, to a place far away in the clean countryside. To a country valley in autumn. A valley full of the scent of freshly mown grass. Yes ... today I got brand-new tatami mats in my workshop!

I have been waiting a long time for this. A woodblock printmaker's income is not very stable, and as you all know, tatami mats are quite expensive. It has been eight years since I had new ones! Eight long years ... But because it has been such a long time, perhaps the pleasure now is just that much greater. The old mats were so worn down in some places that I had patched them with tape here and there, and I felt quite embarrassed when guests came to visit. Alas, nobody visited today to help me enjoy the new mats - but perhaps someone will come tomorrow ... I know exactly what they will say as they enter the room. "Ah, ii nioi desu ne!" "What a wonderful smell!" And the two of us will sit there on the smooth, firm green surface, sipping tea, chatting about this and that, and enjoying the nostalgic feeling that seems to automatically come with fresh clean tatami.

When my family lived in Canada, we wanted to get a couple of tatami mats from Japan for our apartment. We thought that they would make a nice focus for the room, be a pleasant place to sit, and would also be a good place to spread our sleeping mattress (we didn't use a bed). Unfortunately though, we were not able to import them because of strict agricultural restrictions (I think it was concern about disease or insects in the straw). But I waited patiently, and when I arrived in Japan just over eight years ago, made sure that the apartment I rented had a 'wa shitsu', a Japanese room. Since then, I have been almost totally living on tatami. As all my work is done in that room, and of course sleeping as well, I guess I probably spend about 20 hours a day on my tatami.

So for me, the arrival of these new mats today was not only a long-awaited experience, but one to be treasured. I know that over the next few weeks and months, they will gradually lose their fresh smell, and will slowly change from light green to golden brown, but for as long as it lasts, I will savour this wonderful clean 'country' feeling. And I promise myself - I won't ever wait eight years before I get new tatami again!

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)

If I describe to you some of my surroundings as I sit writing this little piece, can you guess the date? I am in the tatami room of my Tokyo 'mansion', with a portable fan standing on the floor nearby, turning its head this way and that. Next to my keyboard is a tall glass of 'mugi-cha', condensation dripping down its sides. The thermometer on the wall indicates nearly 30C, and it is so humid that it is difficult to remain interested in the work I am supposed to be doing ... Is that enough information? I suppose you would guess: high summer.

Well, no. Actually, it's the third week in September, and just as every year by this time, I've had enough of this kind of weather. I've had enough, not just because it has been a long hot summer and I'm ready for a change, but because this muggy weather is just not right for September, a month that indelibly in my mind, is an autumn month.

How is it that our traditional calendar seasons so poorly match the reality around us? Am I alone in having this image of September, October and November as autumn; of December, January and February as winter; of March, April and May as spring; and June, July and August as summer? But the real seasons are different, aren't they? Autumn is really October, November and December. The truly cold hard months are January, February and March. April, May and June are the time when the world is coming back to life again; and July, August and September are the hot months.

I think the source of the confusion can be found in astronomy, and the relative length of the days and nights. The real seasons here on the ground are anywhere up to two months 'behind' the astronomical events that are their cause. June 21st may well be the longest day, but it is far from the hottest, just as December 21st is by no means the coldest. This earth is indeed a very big object, and has an immense inertia that must be overcome to alter things like ocean currents and jet streams, and whatever else affects our weather patterns. Although the days actually start getting longer way back in December, even before Christmas, it takes a long, long time for the extra hours of sunlight and the stronger angle of the radiation to have an effect.

I suppose also, that people living up in Hokkaido and down in Okinawa have quite a different view of the seasons from those of us living here in the Kanto, as of course do people living in more varied parts of the world. So I guess there's not much we can do about this misalignment between tradition and reality. Each of us simply has to learn what local weather patterns are like, and adjust accordingly.

After all, if Australians can learn to enjoy Xmas while lying on the hot beaches of the Gold Coast, I'm sure I can learn to start thinking of autumn while sitting in the breeze from my fan, and drinking cool mugi-cha!

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)

For some years now, the newspapers have regularly carried stories about growing numbers of 'homeless' people, at first mostly datelined from America and Europe, but more recently from here in Japan as well. At the moment I don't want to get into whether this problem is a 'personal' one, caused by individual irresponsibility, or evidence of a wider, more general, social malaise. It's a different kind of 'homelessness' that's been concerning me recently - my own. Now should any of those people actually living out on the street happen to read this, they may perhaps take offense at use of the word 'homeless' by a person such as myself, who has a quite comfortable apartment, fully stocked with a big pile of warm futons. But the word 'home' does have a couple of meanings ... not only that building where we happen to be 'parking' our bodies every night ... but also that place where we consider our roots to be.

With many people, these two concepts may be rolled together into one particular location, but for many others, they are quite separate. I suppose in times gone by, when people were much less mobile than now, it was the norm to be living either at, or at least near, ones ancestral home, but patterns of life in the last half of the 20th century are obviously different. It is not merely that I and my compatriot baby-boomers are very mobile people, but that our parents were also. My own experience is, I think, not atypical: as I was growing up, we moved house frequently, never staying long enough in any given place to put down many roots. Even after we children left home, my parents continued this pattern, even up to last year, when they sold yet another house, and moved into rented accommodation. So for myself, my brother, and my sister, there is no place on this earth that could possibly represent 'home', other than our current residences. But in my mind at least (and I suspect theirs too), my present address just is not the kind of place that I could call 'home' in that deeper sense. It is a rented concrete building on a noisy main road, surrounded by automobile parking lots. "Home?" No way. It's just a roof to keep the rain off.

When I first moved here, such thoughts as this didn't bother me. I guess I just assumed that I'd be 'moving on' fairly soon anyway, and this place would just be another in a long sequence of short-term accommodations. But things didn't work out quite that way. I became settled into a steady line of work (my woodblock printmaking), my kids became settled in school, and we all developed quite an affection for our local community. (Despite my disparaging remarks about our building, Hamura City is a very liveable place.) So one year became two ... and then three ... and now I find that more than eight years have gone by ... in temporary accommodation. It is an acceptable home, but it is not a 'home', and I am missing that latter feeling ...

This lack was exacerbated last year with the breakup of the relationship with my wife, and her departure from our home. Her family, in complete contrast to mine, had been for generations very much rooted in one place. During the course of our fourteen years together, we spent a lot of time visiting her old 'home', and spent many long happy summers there. Over the years, without my even realizing it, I gradually developed quite an affection for the place. I was 'adopting' a 'home'.

The shock and pain of our separation was thus multiplied by these feelings. I hadn't just lost a long-time partner, I had lost a home. During the year since our divorce, I have become pretty much reconciled to life as a single man again (the process has been mitigated a lot by the companionship of my two daughters), but I have to admit that I am far from settled with respect to my feelings about a home. I miss that place very much.

So more and more, my thoughts return to this question, and it seems to me that the answer is on the face of it, quite simple - find a place I like, move there, and then spend years settling in and developing a feeling that it is my 'home'. In other words, build one for myself, rather than searching for a non-existent 'family home'. Make that move my last move. I am still only 42, and have many years left in which I could put down quite extensive roots. This is all very easy to say, but somewhat more difficult to put into practice. The problem is simply stated. Where?

I don't mean "Japan or Canada?" That was settled in my mind some time ago. Canada exerts no pull on me at all, and I think I will be quite content to live out my life in this country. But where then, in Japan? On the surface, my present town of Hamura seems like a good choice, with good neighbours, excellent community facilities, good access to basic necessities, and of course after eight years here, the three of us are well on the way to developing strong connections with this place. But counterbalancing all these 'pluses', is one huge 'minus'. Not if I live to be a hundred years old will I ever be able to afford to buy a piece of land here adequate for building a comfortable house. I don't want a palace, but I do want somewhat more space than these tiny houses and apartments provide. I would like to be able to walk through my house without banging into things all the time. The cost though, is so astronomical, that urban Tokyo is just not a practical option.

What then of the other obvious choice, a place out in the countryside? In this age of rural depopulation, certainly there are no shortage of potential places in every corner of Japan. That's true, and if it were only up to me, this is the route I would probably choose. But of course, it is not only up to me. I must also think about those two little girls who will be in my care for yet another ten years or so. How would they fare in such an environment? In this case also, I have mixed feelings. (Why is it that nothing is black and white anymore ... like everything was back when I was 20?) Although my general impressions of rural life are positive - living at a slower pace, surrounded by greenery, in a more 'natural' environment, there are negatives. That ongoing rural depopulation has taken a severe toll on the level of amenities available to country dwellers, and access to shopping, medical facilities, and of course schools, becomes quite a big problem for a family such as mine.

Given all these conflicting viewpoints on the matter, it's just as well that my financial resources are still far short of a level that would permit any decisive action on this. And as the girls seem very happy just where they are, with plenty of friends, activities, and community entanglements, it would not be fair to pull them away, just to cater to a whim of mine. Whether or not our current residence feels like 'home' to me, I have to admit that it almost certainly is 'home' to them. Indeed, they know no other.

So I guess I'll simply bide my time. I'll keep my eyes open for information on suitable locations, and in the meantime will try and save up as much as I can, in order to be ready when the time finally arrives. It should be an interesting process - instead of looking back to an old ancestral family home, I'll look forward to building a new one for myself. A 'made-to-order' solution for my own 'homeless' problem!

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)

As I have two children attending the local elementary school, I end up spending a lot of time over there myself. A few times a month at least, I find myself walking the school halls, on my way to one kind of meeting or another. If I think back to my own elementary school days, it seems to me that my parents didn't visit the school anywhere near as much as I have to these days. I am sure that they went to 'home-and-school' meetings now and then, and also went to concerts and such events, but beyond that, I don't think there was much in the way of required parental involvement in school activities. School was school, and home was home, and there wasn't a whole lot of overlap between the two. As I didn't pay too much attention to such things back then, I may be overlooking something or other, but I'm quite sure there wasn't the constant parade of mothers visiting the school that I see in my community here in Japan.

I say 'mothers', but actually it's not 100% of the time that it is the mother from each family that is the one to be involved with these school activities. It's probably only about 99%! And the other 1% is me ... Although most of the parents and kids at our school long ago got used to seeing a foreigner walking around, I do still feel a little bit out of place at these meetings. Not because I'm a foreigner, but because I'm male. Being a single parent, I'm automatically delegated to attend the 'Jigyo sankan' (when parents visit classes in progress), or the 'Hogosha kai' (parent-teacher meeting), or the 'Tanoshimi kai' (a kind of class party for kids and parents). It is very rare indeed for me to see another father at one of these events. Don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to criticize these fathers for not being there. Obviously, they are at work, and unable to attend. I work at home, on a 'free' schedule, and am almost always available.

Five years ago, when I first started attending these meetings, I was quite willing to speak out ... perhaps too willing. Although my language skills were even worse then than they are now, I was always ready to give my opinion on whatever topic was under discussion. And the teachers and mothers were only too ready to keep asking me. After all, they mostly all came from the same background, and there was rarely any disagreement or expression of new ideas, so my presence was a chance for them to get a bit of a new viewpoint on things. There was one negative aspect to this, which I didn't fully grasp at the time, but have since grown more aware of. Whenever I gave an example from my own school experiences in England or Canada that perhaps differed from standard Japanese practice, they automatically took my comments to imply a criticism of the Japanese way, and a desire to have things done the foreign way. Now I hadn't meant this at all, and had simply been offering a viewpoint on another system. After all, if I really did think the Canadian way was better, then that's where I would be living, not here! But over the intervening years, they have gradually come to understand that I am generally quite happy with things here, and my comments are not to be taken so seriously. And for my part, I am more careful of how I speak.

In the early days, the meetings were generally quite interesting for me, for a couple of reasons. Not only was it all new and fresh, but with my children just starting out in school, I was very concerned that they integrate well, and thus didn't want to miss anything that was going on. But I must admit that five years down the road, with the girls now doing very well and completely integrated into this environment, I find that I am somewhat less concerned. It has all become pretty routine ...

So much routine in fact, that during a school meeting last week, where all of us parents stood at the back of the classroom, and watched while the kids went through a music lesson, I found that I couldn't keep my eyes away from the clock. It was moving so slowly. Was it broken? And this took me back in time ... right back about 30 years. Perhaps I shouldn't admit this, as it will give you a pretty good idea of just what kind of student I was, but when I remember my school days - I mostly remember the clocks! And of course, for the same reason ... they always moved so slowly.

Although some kids seem to adjust quite well to school routines, doing certain things at certain times, and sitting still in their seats while an adult up at the front of the room 'explains' things to them, some other children have trouble adjusting to such a system. In my early school days, I was a model student, who behaved himself and attained high marks. But over the years I somehow lost my ability to conform to this pattern. I never became a problem student, and I never made trouble, but the steady decline in my grades from grade one (perfect marks) right through grade twelve (barely passing), and then on to university (first year incomplete ...) tells its own story - that of an enthusiastic learner, gradually worn down by the 'system'.

It's not that I wasn't smart enough, or patient enough (any man who can take on a ten-year printmaking project like mine has no need to prove he can be patient!). The basic problem with me and schools is just that I have an inherent dislike of being 'instructed' in how to do something. I don't want to be told how to do it, I want to simply do it. I just could not sit there and listen to teachers endlessly droning on with the lessons. Oh, those clocks! Those days when time itself seemed to stand still!

Now, I well know that we can't simply do away with our present education system. After all, I wouldn't want my dentist to be the type of person who 'learns by doing', rather than by carefully studying proper procedures. Or the pilot of the plane that brought me to Japan ... or the doctor who delivered my two children ... Our society definitely needs some sort of rigorously structured, stable method of instruction and education. But it would be nice to think that there were alternatives available for those people who just don't fit into such patterns. For the dreamers ...

At present in Japan, there are really only two choices for a young person. Either stay with the system and become 'educated', or else become a 'dropout', and remain 'uneducated' forever. One of the most interesting ironies in my life is the fact that success in my endeavours has come to me, not in Canada, where 'dropouts' like myself have many chances to advance themselves, but here in Japan, where the possession of a university degree is an assumed pre-requisite to success.

I think things are now changing though. As a result of the approaching sharp decline in student populations, schools here are going to become much more flexible institutions, and society as a whole is also becoming much more tolerant of those who wish to follow a 'different drummer'. I hope some of these changes happen in time to save my daughters from some of my negative school experiences.

But perhaps I'm worrying about nothing. During that 'endless' music class that I visited, I may have been watching the clock a lot, but I noticed that my daughter Fumi wasn't. She was listening to the teacher, making music with her friends, and enjoying herself. I sincerely hope she will enjoy the rest of her school years as much ...

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:33 AM | Comments (0)

That she would ask this question one day was inevitable. I had been waiting quite some time for it, but had felt that it was probably still a few years away. Whether sooner or later though, that it would be asked was pre-ordained more than eleven years ago, the day I found out that our yet-to-be-born child was an 'XX' type ... "Dad, can I get a 'perm'?"

Himi is currently an elementary school student, in grade five. It may be that getting a permanent is a current fad among her age group, or perhaps it is her own idea. She and her nine year old sister do seem to have a lot of interest in their hair-styles, and I think this is readily explained by the fact that as they are still too young to be involved with make-up, and as they don't really have a large selection of clothes from which to choose, 'doing' their hair is thus about the only form of physical self-expression they have available to them. One day it's a ponytail, the next it's braids, and then the next day it's something else entirely. There seems no end to the permutations, and they have amassed a large basketful of accessories to assist with the job: ribbons, elastics, pins, clips, and dozens of other odds and ends for fastening and decorating hair.

Realizing the personal nature of this morning chore of theirs (and not only mornings), I try to keep pretty much out of their way in this matter. My job these days is simply to offer opinions when asked. "Yes, that looks fine." "Sure, that's OK." "Mmmm, nice job!" Occasionally when things get a bit out of hand, when somebody simply can't decide what style is suitable, and school-time is drawing closer ... then I reluctantly get involved, 'suggesting' a resolution to the dilemma, perhaps say, Option 'A'. This is inevitably rejected, and they suddenly find that Option 'B' is the only way to go ... but at least they do then get off to school on time.

In all fairness though, I must admit that this 'hands off' attitude of mine is a fairly recent state of affairs. From the time they were born, right up until they were nine and seven respectively, they never had their hair cut, as I had very much enjoyed having two daughters who looked so 'cute', with beautiful silky long hair cascading down their back. It was very long indeed, right down to their waists, and was a lot of trouble to take care of. But I didn't complain, and along with their mother, I took my turn shampooing, drying, and brushing it. We must have spent endless hours caring for their hair, but to my mind, it was worth it. They looked absolutely beautiful. I couldn't wait until they became tall and elegant young women, each with a stunning waterfall of hair ...

But of course you all know what came next. As they grew bit by bit, and as their own personalities developed, so did their desire to try something different. They wanted to cut their hair. I dug in my heels and refused. My justification was simple, "You're too young to be able to make decisions like this for yourself. If you cut it, tomorrow you'll just be crying because you made a mistake. You can do what you want with your own hair later ..." Just when was 'later'? As far as I was concerned, it meant basically never, but at some point we had to quantify this, and we established that, "When you become middle school students, you can decide things like hair-styles for yourself, but until then, 'Father knows best.'"

But the two girls haven't been the only ones 'growing up'. During the years that they have been developing, I too have changed. Having kids has been quite a learning experience for me, and many of the ideas and attitudes with which I started out have been altered or discarded along the way. (Did I say 'many'? How about 'all'!) Perhaps the biggest of these was my perception of a family as an organization similar to a business, with a 'boss' at the top (or 'bosses'), and then a bunch of people lower down, who followed orders and did as they were told. I don't mean a kind of Victorian super-strictness, but simply that the demarcation of authority was clear, and absolute. Decisions were made on a 'top down' basis. My way of thinking was perhaps also influenced to some degree by the fact that during the years my children were being born, I was employed as manager of a business, with considerable authority over, and responsibility for, a number of employees. Dozens of times a day, they would come to me for advice or direction. "Dave, how should I handle this?" "Dave, what do we do here ...?" etc., etc. I snapped out decisions right and left, day after day. Second only to the owner of the company, I was the 'decision man'. So I make no apology for carrying this attitude over into my family life. And I don't think I was particularly unusual in doing that ...

But as I said, I've been learning lessons from my kids, and have come to realize that imposition of absolute authority over family matters by a parent is misguided. Although it may be a good system for organizations such as the military, where people are rigidly 'pegged' into place, and where obedience is a fundamental requirement of the structure, if this pattern is applied rigourously to a family, it breeds over-dependence, lack of ability to think for oneself, and general resentment all around.

I should make it clear before I go any further, that I'm not recommending that children be allowed to do anything they want. Young kids are not adults, have a very un-developed grasp of such concepts as responsibility and consequences, and do need firm guidance. But there is obviously a long sliding scale - from the newborn baby who requires all decisions to be taken by the parent, right up to that young adult just leaving the nest, who needs only words of advice (impartial, and on request only). It is the parent's job to walk along this 'slope', trying to strike the right balance between control and guidance.

So getting back to the hair story ... a couple of years ago, when their mother was visiting from Canada for the summer, and the three of them pestered me about cutting their hair, I finally admitted that a father had no business dictating such things as the length of his daughters' hair, and turned it over to them, to act as they saw fit. Of course, they both went for a haircut right away, and when they came home from the beauty shop that afternoon, proud of their new 'short cuts', I congratulated them on their fresh new appearance. And it was true. They looked great! And there were neither tears nor recriminations ...

Since that time, I have really tried to be conscious of not imposing my own desires on them, and have tried to let them make as many decisions for themselves as possible. Sometimes they go too far, and act irresponsibly; eating too many afternoon snacks, skipping some important school homework, or staying up too late; but they are gradually learning that each time they do something like this, there is inevitably a price exacted - either a stomach-ache, an angry teacher, or being late for school the next morning. They certainly make mistakes, but overall, I think they are not doing so badly ... And because they know that I do not impose arbitrary rules and orders, they are generally willing to follow my directions when necessary.

We are now entering the minefield of their teen years, a time of life when most of us try and rebel to some degree against the authority and rules that surround us. I don't have too many illusions about this, and fully expect that we will have our share of battles, but I would like to think that we can avoid a great many of the more trivial reasons for parent/teen friction. Like perms, for example.

I will express no preference either way on this one, and it will be up to her to choose. If she is willing to make the necessary investment, I will support her choice (we usually go 50/50 on the cost of such things, kids paying their share out of the allowance I pay them for the considerable amount of housework they do). There will remain only one obstacle. Although her father is trying not to 'dominate' all her decision making, she must also consider the viewpoint of that other important institution in her life, and I rather suspect that they may have something to say about this one ...

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)

Have you ever seen the stars? I guess that most of you would probably answer "Of course!" to this question, but I wonder if you really have ...

When I was a young elementary school student, I was quite interested in the stars, and in astronomy in general. Besides studying the names of the constellations, I learned everything I could about the planets and other 'heavenly bodies'. It was impossible for me to afford to buy a telescope, but I did take some courses offered by a local planetarium.

One thing about astronomy always puzzled me very much. I knew that modern astronomers used powerful telescopes and complex computers to do their work, and I could never understand how people in ancient times were able to know so much about the heavens, without having access to such special tools. We have all read about people in prehistoric civilizations who built temples lined up with the spring solstice, or who could predict the next eclipse, and so on. As it is obviously so difficult to study the stars, the planets, and their movements, how could they learn these things?

I found the answer to this question one fine autumn day, about ten years ago. When I lived back in Canada, my job involved travelling to many different places, and one day I visited a small town in the far northern part of the country, up near the Arctic Circle. After the business of the day was done, and dinner was over, my host asked me, "Would you like to see the stars?" He drove me to a little 'scenic lookout' spot, away from the town. He turned off the car lights, and we stepped out into the chilly air, into ... a cathedral! That's the only word I can think of to describe the sensation of standing under that incredible arctic sky. Stars! Up until that moment, I hadn't known what the word meant. Stars ... billions upon billions of stars, of every possible level of brightness.

A huge glowing white splash across the sky marked the course of the Milky Way, and now I understood that name too. Have you ever stood on that hill at Hakodate, and looked down at the city lights? This was far, far more spectacular than even that 'million dollar' view.

And at once, it was obvious to me why those ancients were so interested in the sky, and so skilled at 'reading' it. So interested in the stars, planets, comets, and eclipses. This glorious panorama must have been a daily event for them before city lights, car exhausts, and factory smoke came along to destroy it for most of us. They needed no special telescopes to experience this. Just their own eyes. Astronomical events such as the progression of the seasons were written clearly right there in the sky for anyone to read. Watching the varied workings of this astonishing display must have been the instigation of mankind's thinking about mathematics, of science, and of man himself and his own place in the universe. It was the beginning of our climb ... To these stars, how much we owe ...

And we have destroyed this 'cathedral'. Or rather, have exchanged it - for our modern cities, with their buildings, and roads, and ... lights. I suppose it has been a worthwhile exchange. I for one, would not like to live in a dark hut like my ancestors did thousands of years ago. But it would be nice to think that someday we may learn how to organize a society in which we could enjoy modern conveniences, but still live in such a way that each one of us grew up aware of this vast cathedral in which we live. Perhaps we would then understand our place in the universe just a little bit better.

Let me now ask you again ... Have you ever seen the stars?

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

There is one particular recurring and unavoidable event in my life, which every time it comes round, has me thinking, "I'll just leave it a bit longer. I'll do it next week." A week later, I'm saying, "Maybe next week ..." I put it off, again and again, until it becomes just impossible to delay any longer, and I'm absolutely forced into going.

You're probably thinking that you can guess what this thing is ... the dentist, right? No. You're wrong! I go to the dentist for check-ups regularly, and learned long ago that delay in that case only makes things much worse. No, what I have in mind is an activity that is completely non-threatening, at least to normal people, but which for some reason, just isn't my 'cup of tea' ... buying clothes. My dislike of clothes shopping is really quite strong, and I procrastinate endlessly before going. My jeans have to have become tattered rags before I can bring myself to "get it over with", and head down to the shops.

This aversion truly is intense. No sooner do I step through the door into the shop, whether small local one or large department store, than I can feel the sweating start. My hands get clammy, and my eyes flicker here and there nervously. The sales clerks probably think I'm about to rob the place! The sequence of events is inevitably the same; I wander around until I find the pair of jeans, or shirt, or whatever, that seems closest to what I'm already wearing, and then try and figure out what size is suitable. I can never remember whether my shirts are 'M' or 'L', or whether my jeans are 28 waist or 30, it's always such a long time since I bought the previous ones. But it doesn't make any difference even if I do remember. For example, the sales clerk might foist an 'L' shirt on me (in her mind 'gaijin' invariably equals 'L' size), but when I get home and try it on, I find that I've bought a tent, not a shirt, and for the next half a year or so, I have to wear this baggy floppy thing. When next I go, I might remember this experience, and buy an 'M' size instead. But of course, this turns out to be much too tight, and I burst the buttons. Don't misunderstand. It's not my body that changes. My weight has been absolutely consistent ever since I was a teenager, and it never goes up and down (although I must admit that I have put a couple of kilos on my chest since I started daily swimming a few years ago). It's the sizes that are inconsistent from maker to maker, and from shop to shop.

As a result of this idiotic behaviour of mine, I almost never have things to wear that I feel comfortable in, and consequently grow to dislike clothes more and more. It's a vicious cycle, only broken when I receive some article of clothing as a gift. These are always things I would never, ever buy for myself, and thus are inevitably the most tasteful, best-fitting clothes that I own. If I ever meet you, and you think that my clothes look OK, you can be assured that they were purchased for me by somebody else. If I look like the more typical 'me', bedraggled and ill-fitted, then you know I've been shopping for myself again ...

The contrast between my perverse behaviour, and my daughters' attitude to clothes shopping, will thus come as no surprise to you. They love it, and can never have enough new things to wear. Of course, as sprouting youngsters, they do need a lot of new clothes, and luckily for me, they are completely capable of selecting well-fitted, suitable clothes for themselves (although it does take rather a lot of time!). It is to my eternal relief that they are not in the slightest bit interested in having me along when they are shopping. As any parent of teens can attest, they only want my wallet.

And now, as I write this, the perfect solution to my little 'problem' comes to mind. I should ask my two daughters to do my clothes shopping for me! They might not be so willing at first, but if I were to bribe them a bit with the suggestion that they could also pick up something for themselves at the same time ...

I think maybe I'll give it a try. They certainly couldn't do any worse than I do for myself, and probably quite the opposite. So, maybe next time we meet, beware! Perhaps I'll be quite the fashionable young gentleman!

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 08:25 PM | Comments (0)

Unfortunately, as it is the busiest part of our family day, with dinner, homework, and bath all crowded onto the schedule during these hours, early evening is not the relaxed time that I would like it to be. I fully expect chaos in the mornings. My two teenage daughters lie in their futons as long as they can, with one eye on the clock, calculating the last possible moment at which they can get up, and still eat breakfast, fix their hair, prepare their school satchels, etc., without being late for school. The result, of course, is mayhem, lasting until that moment when the door slams behind them, and they disappear from my life until mid-afternoon. The mornings, for me, are written off in advance.

But it is a great regret to me that I have 'lost' the evenings as well. Daytimes are a constant buzz of activity, either carving or printing woodblocks, working on one or another piece on the word processor, or dealing with correspondence and what have you, and not so suitable for what I have in mind. The late evenings, after the girls are asleep, are too dark and gloomy. Too gloomy for what? For a pleasant evening stroll around the neighbourhood.

It's during that half-hour just before sunset, and the half-hour just following, that I like to go. Our apartment is on a busy, very noisy main road, but once safely around the corner and into the back streets, things are more serene. In spring, summer and fall, really the only suitable seasons for such strolls, the temperature at this time of day is always comfortable. The neighbours are out walking their dogs (and the occasional cat), and middle school kids and a few salarymen are making their way home from the station (high schoolers and a lot more salarymen come later, much later).

One would think that a person who really had proper control over his life should certainly be able to take a walk when he feels like it, but there just doesn't seem to be any way to get things to work that way. The three of us have tried going for walk together at this time, and delaying dinner for an hour, but inevitably the entire evening schedule thus gets pushed back, the girls are an hour later than usual heading for bed, and then the next morning ...! No, the increased stress in the morning is too high a price to pay.

But I seem to be getting side-tracked here, because it was not actually evening walks that I had in mind when I sat down a few minutes ago to start this little piece. It was rather, one of the reasons I particularly enjoy evening walks in our neighbourhood, on those rare occasions when I do manage to get out. It is those delightful little animals that come out at this time of day to look for their dinner, the bats.

There must be hundreds of bats living in my neighbourhood, for I usually see dozens of them during the course of a stroll in the evening. Anywhere there is an open space, preferably with some greenery, one can see a few bats flitting around, in the small parks, the school sports ground, even over the asphalt parking lot outside my window.

Just why it is that bats inspire so much dread in most people, I really can't understand. Yes, we're all familiar with 'vampire' stories and legends, but surely any intelligent person knows that such tales bear absolutely no relation to the behaviour of the tiny flying mammals we see in our own community. Given the general tendency of most Japanese (at least the female variety) to find small furry animals 'adorable', it's a bit of a puzzle.

This isn't the only thing about our local bats that is a puzzle for me. Try as I might, I have never been able to discover where they go when they are finished catching their dinner each evening. Where do they spend the daytime hours? If this was an old village, I could readily believe that they might fly up under the roof of an old thatched farmhouse, or into an abandoned barn, but here in this modern town, there are just no such buildings to be found. Everything is concrete and new. We don't even have any wooden temples or shrines that would presumably be suitable. But they obviously do find places to stay, and must find this area congenial, because there are always lots of them around.

As with most of us, my acquaintance with bats has been necessarily a rather distant one. That is, up until one day last spring, when I finally had a chance to meet one at close range. I nearly stepped on her (I'm quite sure it was a 'her') while coming in to our apartment. A small little brown ball, about two centimeters across, just at the edge of the concrete sidewalk. I thought it was a dead mouse at first, but when I looked closer, I saw that it was a tiny bat, and then when it moved slightly, realized that it was alive.

On any number of occasions, the kids have brought home injured birds, and we've had infant mice, and once, an abandoned cat, just a few hours old. So we've always got the equipment standing ready for use, the eye-dropper, shoebox, cotton wool ... But with the single exception of that baby kitten, who is still living here happily, those other 'rescue' attempts have of course all ended the same way, with an interment under the bushes in the back garden. So I wasn't optimistic about this one. As she was presumably either damaged or diseased, simply feeding her some warm milk and providing a box to rest in, was not going to help the situation much. But one has to try ... especially once ones young daughters get involved.

She took some of the milk quite readily, or seemed to, as it was hard to tell how much was going down. Not much I'm sure, but then just how big could the stomach of a two centimeter ball of fur be? Her face was incredible ... unbelievably fierce in aspect. Oversize pointed ears, tiny beady eyes, and a mouth bristling with needle-like fangs, none of them longer than a millimeter, but appearing huge in her tiny visage. She kept her wings folded, and we didn't try to inspect them for damage, as her limbs were so tiny and seemingly fragile. We didn't want to cause more problems than may have already been there.

We mostly left her alone, huddled in a corner of her dark shoebox, and every couple of hours offered some more milk, which was usually taken. At intervals, she made a mess of the tissues in the bottom of the box. This same pattern continued for a couple of days, and she seemed to be maintaining a stable condition, somewhat surprisingly to me, as I had really not expected her to survive beyond a few hours. As she was doing so well, after one of the feedings, I held her in my hands for a while, and then so as not to let her get chilled, slipped her down into my shirt pocket. She explored a bit, turning this way and that, and then settled down quietly, hanging from the fabric by her tiny claw-like toes.

Well, I wasn't about to disturb her, but I did have work to do, so I settled in at my bench, picked up my knife, and started carving. Quite the 'motherly' feeling! Some time later, she stirred, hunted about a bit, and then inched her way up and out of the pocket, slowly climbing this huge mountain, to finally end up on my shoulder. And then, to my astonishment, she took to the air.

My workroom is a six-mat room, full of bookcases and all manner of junk, so it doesn't really offer much in the way of flying space, but up and away she went. She flew this way and that, from corner to corner, and then after about half a minute or so of circling around, came to rest high up on one wall, near a corner. A few minutes later, she was at it again, zooming around the room. I called the girls in, and the three of us watched in fascination. Her flight was absolutely soundless, at least to us. I hoped I might be able to hear a faint squeaking noise as she navigated around the various obstacles with her 'sonar', but I could make out nothing. Either she made no sound at all, or it was just too high-pitched for human ears to pick up.

The 'exercise' session went on for a half-hour or so, as she alternately rested up on the wall, and flew around the room. As it seemed that she was obviously now recovered from whatever her problem had been, and was presumably trying to get away, to return to her normal life, I slid open the large door leading on to the balcony, and sat back to see what would happen. It didn't seem to make any difference to her. The pattern of resting and flying continued. Surely, she could tell that the door was open, couldn't she? Outside was the open evening sky, and perhaps even just at that moment, the other bats were out catching their meal.

And then her flight pattern altered, and she swooped down once very low, right down in front of my face, before perching back up on the wall. A minute later, again the same thing, close enough for me to hear a rustle sound from her wings as they swept the air by my head. This time, she didn't resume her perch, but swooped around the light, dipped down past my face one final time, and then flew out the window. Passing between two of the veranda railings, she disappeared into the night. Our adventure with this little guest was over.

Had we really 'saved' her? Had our care-taking finally been of some use to a little animal? My daughters think so, but I suspect that perhaps she had never been sick in the first place. Maybe she was a very young bat, who had become disoriented at sunrise that day, and who had simply been trying to 'hide' during the daylight hours. Maybe we had actually 'kidnapped' a completely healthy animal. We will never know. But of course we do like to think that we did indeed help her out a little. After all, why else would she have flown down so close to me to whisper "Good-bye, and thanks for the milk!", just before she left?

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)

Stepping into the dojo, the archery practice hall, last Wednesday morning, I got a bit of a surprise. In addition to the familiar faces of my fellow students and our instructor, I noticed three strangers seated against the wall. They seemed quite timid, and sat somewhat nervously, watching the activity all around them. They turned out to be new 'recruits', here for their first lesson, and I realized that six months must have passed since I myself first came here. I had started in the beginner's class last spring, and it was now time for the autumn session to get under way ...

As we members of the 'old' group went about our practice, we were conscious that the eyes of these newcomers were on us, just as our eyes had followed the movements of the archers who had been here practicing that spring day when we first started. And we knew what they would see, and what they would not notice ... They would not see that our feet were carefully placed, exactly in line with the target; they would not notice that as we lifted up the bow our arms scooped up the air just 'so'; they would not notice that we held the arrow exactly horizontal as we drew back the string; they would not notice that our breathing was timed to match these motions; they would not notice ... oh, there were so many things they would not, could not see! They would see but one thing, and one thing only - did our arrows hit the target ...

And of course, beginners that we still are, even after six months of practice, our arrows do not indeed, very often hit the target. We joke among ourselves about the 'safest place in the practice hall' - that little target sitting down there, 28 meters away. We are still so inconsistent in our shooting ability that the arrows go anywhere but where we have aimed. This time off to the left ... next time down into the grass ... then up off to the right ... and so on, and so on. Indeed, when we are cleaning up at the end of the day's practice, re-smoothing the banked-up sand that supports the target, we notice the wide circular pattern of our many 'hits', and the large blank area in the centre where only a few arrows have struck.

Now actually, this doesn't bother us at all. We are well aware of why we are so inaccurate, and fully understand that target accuracy will only come after we have learned to be completely consistent in the mechanical details of the process: the way we stand, how we hold the bow, the position of our hands, and a myriad other points. It will simply take time. In the meantime, while our muscles and bodies are learning their lessons, our minds are trying to develop something of the (choose my words carefully here ...) the right attitude for this. And this is indeed a very interesting process ...

On the face of it, the proper 'mental state' should probably not be too difficult to achieve. The books on archery I have consulted spend many pages discussing 'zen' and other fairly esoteric things like that, but I would rather approach this in a more straightforward fashion. It seems to me that if I simply spend enough time practicing kyudo, and watching others more experienced than I, and train my body to the point where it can go through the process without any conscious effort on my part, then that should encompass most of what is necessary to become a good archer. Let me illustrate what I mean, with a bit of a silly analogy - the way we use chopsticks (or say, for our western friends, a knife and fork ...). Each of us adults has spent so much time in our lives using these implements that they can almost be said to have become a part of our own bodies. In the beginning, we spilled food everywhere, but over the years our muscles bit by bit became expert at the job, and with that expertise came a gradual lessening of mental control over the process. And now, we have no need to utilize our conscious mind at all. We are masters of the 'zen' of chopsticks ... we use them in a completely natural, 'thought-less' manner.

I think that this should be the goal of our 'kyudo' practice. To advance to a point where we have no need of conscious thought. And also, I would like to think, no need even to consider whether or not we had actually hit the target. Surely, if ones attitude and movements were completely 'natural' and un-selfconscious, anything else would be irrelevant, wouldn't it?

But when I look around at the others in the practice hall, even the teachers, I have to wonder if it really is possible to separate ones body and mind in such a way. For example, the other day we sat quietly and watched as A-sensei (who is no longer quite as young and strong as he once was) sent off four arrows. I enjoyed everything about his 'performance', the elegant movements across the polished floor, the control over his body as he first knelt, and then rose with an arrow in place, the quiet strength flowing through his limbs. I enjoyed it all. All but one thing ... the tightening of his lips and the crease appearing on his forehead as three of his four arrows missed the tiny target. For of course, he is not only a kyudo expert, he is also a human being. A teacher demonstrating his craft in front of students - sometimes well, and sometimes less so ...

I wanted to tell him, "Please relax. It doesn't matter. We're quite happy just to watch you shoot, and absorb the correct forms of the ritual. To enjoy seeing the 'ballet'. The target is irrelevant." But of course I said nothing. Because my own actions just a little earlier in the day had given the lie to these words. For the hundredth time, I had taken my turn standing on that polished floor, had gazed at the target and slowly raised my bow, had tried to think of nothing, and had let the arrow fly, unconcerned about where it would strike. Unconcerned ... And then, for the first time ever for me, it had struck the target. Had struck absolutely dead center, with that incredibly satisfying sound:

'Pok.'

I froze solid in my tracks. I couldn't even lower my arms. Maybe my heart even skipped a beat ... And after a long, long pause, as I unfroze and my heart started up again, I turned to return to my place, and the big broad grin on my face, that just could not be suppressed no matter how hard I tried, gave the lie to that word 'unconcerned'.

It seems to me that all the talk of 'zen', and of 'higher states', ignores some pretty fundamental realities of what human beings are like. Was it wrong for sensei's forehead to register his disapproval of his 'less than perfect' performance in front of his students? Was it wrong for my heart to involuntarily jump at achieving success (even a lucky and temporary one!) after six months striving? I can't believe that it was. These are normal, basic reactions of our emotions to events such as these. To erase such feelings would be to erase our personality, our human-ness. We are not robots ... And although I will still stand by my earlier description of things like kyudo as processes that should be mostly conducted by the body alone as a well-trained machine, I am under no illusions about my ability to isolate my mind from what is going on.

Maybe somewhere, up in the topmost levels of the sport, there are people for whom neither forehead nor heart show the slightest flicker of reaction to their performance. Maybe. But I must confess that I do not find that a standard that I particularly wish to emulate. That is not a mountain I wish to scale. I think I will be quite content to ramble about the foothills with frequently furrowed brow, and then sometimes (but I suppose not too often) feeling that leap of the heart when I hear that wonderful ... 'pok'.

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)

Before leaving Canada to come to live in Japan, I had saved up what I had considered enough money to cover most of our expenses for a year or so, but the chunky 'key' money and deposit that we had paid when renting our apartment soaked up a big chunk of it, and we had to borrow from one of the kids' aunts to get by with until my own income grew large enough to support us.

Being almost broke all the time actually didn't bother us that much. I knew that I'd be able to make a good living sooner or later, and as the kids were very young (still only one and three), their needs were easily met. We ate carefully and as cheaply as possible, we made do with our old clothes, along with neighbourhood 'hand-me-downs' for the kids, and we provided most of our own amusement. One thing that was troublesome for us though, was transportation.

We enjoyed walking in our neighbourhood, and found the trains excellent for travelling to other parts of Tokyo, but were frustrated by those in-between distances that were too far to cover comfortably on foot, especially with little kids in tow. (We had then, and still have now, no desire at all to own a car. They are destructive to the quality of life, dangerous, and expensive, and for a city dweller, are far more trouble than they are worth ...)

What we needed were bicycles. A pair of bicycles with child carriers on the back would give us access to a greatly expanded area of town - more parks, more varied shopping, etc. But our very limited funds meant that such a purchase was out of the question. A solution of sorts did seem to be close at hand, but whether or not it was socially acceptable was a bit of a question ...

Special parking spaces had been set up near the local station by the city, to accomodate the thousands of bicycles used by daily commuters leaving for other parts of Tokyo. As anyone who has lived in Japan for a while is well aware, this type of parking place also serves as a repository for unwanted bicycles. Rather than pay the small fee charged by the city for collection of large garbage items, the owners simply park them here to rust in peace. When I walked down the line of bicycles, I could see many of these 'orphans'. With tires now flat, and all identifying labels scraped off, they were obviously abandoned. From time to time, the city office tagged these 'junkers' with a label stating that if they were not removed by a certain date, they would be hauled away by the city. The word 'recycle' is quite a buzzword in Japan now, but the only future in sight for those poor machines then was to be dumped on Tokyo's trash mountain. So one evening I took a few tools down there, and 'liberated' a pair of old bicycles. I had to take a few parts from a number of different machines in order to put together a couple that would work, but finally came home with two quite serviceable, if somewhat dirty, 're-cycled' bicycles. Plenty of elbow grease, some squirts of oil, and the addition of some new inner tubes finished the job. We were mobile!

Our Japanese friends weren't so excited about this project as I, expressing the view that perhaps some of these apparently unwanted bicycles had at some point been stolen from somebody, and then abandoned at the station by the thieves, probably middle school kids. I had to admit that this indeed might be the case, but that with no way to trace these cycles back to the original owners, and the fact that even if such owners could be found, they would almost certainly not have any interest in 're-possessing' such a rusted pile of junk, my conscience was clear. I was simply doing a community service, helping to clean up the town and recycle some otherwise wasted resources. One of the two bicycles I 'saved' is parked here outside our apartment, still in regular use eight years later, but the other one is gone, and the way I lost it is one of those 'only in Japan' stories ...

While choosing our 'new' bicycles, I had come across a heap of trashed cycles in a corner of the parking lot, about 50 of them all thrown together in a huge pile, probably an attempt to temporarily clean up the area prior to hauling them away. I dug around a bit, and came across something very interesting, the frame (and one wheel only) of a bicycle with a 'transmission' device built in. I had been looking for a bike with a gear change, but this was better than I had expected, and I spent a long time going through the pile, sorting through various seats, wheels, and handlebars, etc., until I had put together a workable unit. After I had finished, and cleaned it all up, it worked just fine. The transmission gave me a very wide range of gear ratios, and I used this bike to haul my chubby little daughter to the day care centre every day, up a long, steep hill.

It looked a bit funny, with the front wheel obviously taken from a different bicycle than the rear one, but it gave me wonderful service for about three years. I took pretty good care of it, but I had no idea how to care for the complicated transmission, and it gradually started to give a bit of trouble. I usually do all the family bicycle repairs myself, but felt a bit intimidated by this one. I was somewhat afraid that if I opened up the transmission unit, there would be a fantastic explosion of little springs and gears, and that I'd never get it back together again. So one day, I wrote a short note to the maker, citing the bike model, and asking if they could supply me with some kind of repair manual for it. I felt sure that they must have something like that, although I was afraid that it might only be available to cycle shops.

As I had half expected, there was no reply. I continued to use the bike, but it gradually got worse and worse, and one day, broke down completely. I prepared to head back to the 'help yourself' bike stockpile, to look for a replacement, but felt so sad at losing that wonderful transmission, that I tried contacting the company once more, this time by telephone.

The customer service people there were friendly, but were not able to do anything for me. Not only did they not have a service manual available, but they told me, "That model is simply unrepairable. We had to take it off the market a couple of years ago. We're sorry, but there's nothing we can do for you ...". I knew when I was beaten, and I prepared to hang up, but at the last minute he asked me for my name and address. I thought that he might be sending me some kind of parts list, or repair advice sheet, so gladly gave him the information.

I guess it was a couple of days later, there was a knock on the door. It was a representative from the bicycle company. And there on the back of his truck, was a brand new mountain bike. A 21-geared, super-lightweight, mountain bike. A deluxe, very expensive, latest model mountain bike! He explained that as they felt quite bad that I was having trouble with one of their products, one that they felt was perhaps not manufactured well enough in the first place, they wanted to swap ... my old, broken cycle, for this new one. A straight exchange.

Of course I was flabbergasted. But on top of that, I was seized with guilt. I hadn't bought that old bicycle in the first place, and you could even argue that I had actually stolen it ... And now they wanted to give me a new 120,000 yen machine to replace it. I just couldn't do this, so I told the guy the whole story, and showed him my 'patchwork' bike. He looked a bit green when he saw it, and asked if he could use the phone for a moment ... The 'conference' with his home office was short. 'No problem.' It wasn't just the fact that they wanted to maintain their reputation for quality products, but they also wanted to have a look at my old bike, I suppose to study how the transmission had fared over the years, and how it had gone wrong.

So we made the exchange. He loaded my old heap onto his truck, and left me with that incredible, shiny new mountain bike, far and away the best bicycle I've ever had in my whole life. Of course, I couldn't just leave it at that. I wrote to that division of the company, thanking them very much for their gesture, and enclosed a thick pile of beer tokens for them to share around the office ...

This was more than three years ago, and that wonderful bike is still my daily partner, for expeditions near and far. I always keep it clean and oiled, and never use it in wet weather (I went back to the station and picked up another 'junker' just for use on rainy days ...).

And I've also paid back a bit of my 'debt' to that company. A couple of years ago, when my girls needed new bikes of their own, I wasn't able to head over to the station to scrounge a couple, as they had become old enough to feel embarrassed by such an idea. I had to bow to the inevitable at last, and go to a bike shop. But I didn't begrudge spending the money. After receiving such a wonderful gift, it would have been pretty cheap for me to refuse new bikes for them. So now ... we're a complete 'Bridgestone' family. Thanks, guys!

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)

My friend Terry lives just a little bit farther away than a friend should. From my home here in the western outskirts of Tokyo, it takes just about two hours by train to reach his place down at the south end of Yokohama. That's a four hour round trip, making 'drop in' visits out of the question, and leaving only weekends for getting together. and as his company is very busy, with many of the employees working not only Saturdays but sometimes even on Sundays, we just don't manage to get together very often.

So we talk on the phone now and then, and we send each other packages, usually including things like magazines we have received from overseas, newspaper clippings or books we think each other might find worth reading, and sometimes even a CD or two of interesting new music we have discovered. And occasionally, but only occasionally, we manage to actually get together, usually on a weekend, when he steals a bit of time from his company and comes over to visit and see my two girls, who consider him 'Uncle Terry'. (It's just as well that these visits are relatively infrequent, as we inevitably stay up chatting until five in the morning or so. This doesn't bother me too much, because there's no time clock in my workshop for 'punching in', but it leaves him in no shape for returning to work on the Monday!)

I did get a chance to see him just last week though, and among the other things we talked about, he apologized for not remembering to return one of the CD's I had sent to him a while ago. As I knew he had enjoyed that music very much, I shrugged this off, saying that he should just keep it, and I would pick up another one for myself later. I was just happy that I had finally been able to recommend something that he had really liked. But what he said next surprised me a little. He added that he had learned the music quite well, and just didn't want to keep the actual disc itself around his house. Quite a pile of CD's and other things was starting to accumulate, and this was bothering him.

I knew what he meant. He was at a stage where he was starting to find that his possessions were getting the better of him, and weighing him down. I have had this feeling many times, and can understand his desire not to add even one more little CD to the growing heap of 'things' that surrounds him. Taken one by one, all these possessions of ours seem 'normal' and needed: that pair of trousers, those dishes, this umbrella, that bedding in the closet, this book we enjoyed, the refrigerator, that bicycle ... the list goes on ... and on ... and on. Each item a simple accessory for living, but taken all together ... what a monstrous pile they make!

It becomes especially apparent, and even painful, when we move house. Load after load goes out to the truck, filling it to the top, and still the endless stream keeps coming. However did we get that much stuff! Where does it all come from?

For many of us, those times when we move house are a wonderful opportunity to get rid of a great deal of the overload. Out it goes, and one steps into the new home with a feeling of starting afresh. For me especially, when I came to Japan eight years ago, this feeling was very strong. We arrived to start our new life with only two small backpacks (and one of those was half full of diapers!). Our apartment seemed huge ... great echoing empty spaces. It was truly wonderful. But now, what has happened? There's junk everywhere around us, and I feel like I can hardly move sometimes. Actually, I exaggerate a little. We do have a lot of stuff, but nothing like the collection most of our neighbours have accumulated. In some of their homes, you can literally not even see the walls. One couple living upstairs from us moved out recently, and they filled three good-sized moving vans, all from a tiny 3LDK just the same size as ours. And this was a young couple - not a family.

Because I am aware of how easily this 'pressure of possessions' builds up bit by bit so sneakily, I am always trying to fight it. Before I make any purchase for our home, I ask, "Is this an object that we really do need, and will make regular use of?" If I can't answer in the affirmative, then my wallet stays in my pocket, even though my daughters may mount vocal opposition. When buying food or other consumables of course, this is not a factor. These things come in, are used, and disappear quickly. Clothing is also not a problem for us. Himi and Fumi each have a strictly limited space for keeping clothes, and before we go shopping for new ones, they must first discard some older ones. Of course, as they are growing so rapidly, even slightly old clothes are useless, and are either thrown out, or passed on to friends, depending on the condition. Later on, when their growth rate slows down somewhat, and they wish to keep favorite clothes for a longer time span, I might have a bit of a problem on my hands ...

One area that is definitely a problem for us, is books. After reading a book I make an immediate decision - to keep it or to get rid of it, but unfortunately, the 'keep' pile always seems to include about 90% of the books. The 'discard' pile is always so small that I never seem to get around to carrying them down to the used bookshop. As a result of this, the books are starting to take over our apartment, little stacks of them springing up in odd corners here and there. But books are special, I tell myself. You can never have too many books. And the idea of throwing out all these old friends, who have brought so much pleasure ... No way! And as my daughters well know how I feel about books, it's next to impossible to even talk to them about cutting down on their bookshelf space ...

All in all though, I don't feel we are doing too badly. Yes, we have a lot of stuff in this apartment. But no, we don't really have a lot of unnecessary 'junk'. Just the normal complement of household goods, permitting a basic standard of living. We plan our purchases carefully, and try and use common sense.

I haven't been in Terry's apartment recently, so I don't really know if he actually has a problem or not, but if I were him, I wouldn't worry about it. After all, in a couple of years or so, he'll probably be getting married anyway, and his new wife is going to throw out all his old stuff!

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)

At first it was simply an irritating intrusion. Please no, not here - not now! Not in my favourite park ... I come here for the peace and quiet, not for a serenade! But the young trumpet player was obviously settling down to a long practice session, sitting over there in the tall grass under the shade of an overhanging tree, so there was nothing for it but to pack up my notebook, and head off in search of quieter fields ...

Not that I'd written anything. As usual, here on this hillside, I'd let myself get distracted by nothing much at all, and the page was still completely blank, but there's always the chance, isn't there? And the sun was so warm, and the grass so soft, that I really didn't have the energy to get up, get on my bicycle, and head off. I'd stay where I was, and try and ignore him.

Actually, I shouldn't have harboured any bad feelings towards the guy. It was only about 25 years ago that I was doing the same thing ... exactly the same thing. In my case, it hadn't been a trumpet, but rather a flute that I sometimes took outside to practice under the trees. I'm sure it never occured to me that I was bothering anyone. After all, I was making beautiful music, wasn't I?

So after a while, I relaxed a bit, and even started to listen to what he was playing. It seemed that he was probably a member of a high school band who had brought his book of trumpet parts out here to practice. And the more I listened to him play, the more the feeling grew on me that I'd heard all this somewhere before ...

When we use the word 'musician', everybody pretty much agrees on the meaning - a person making music, either with the assistance of an instrument of some kind, or simply with his own voice. But it seems to me that there are musicians ... and there are musicians. One the one hand are 'real' musicians, those who make music, and on the other are those who 'play at' making music. I'm not talking about the difference between professionals who make a living from music, and amateurs who do it simply for fun. I'm also not referring to specific skills, whether or not one has a 'good ear' or some such thing. What I'm talking about is the kind of inner creative drive that is present in some of those people we call 'musicians', and yet which is completely absent in other people claiming the same title.

Let me give an example, from back in the days when I lived and breathed music, when I could think of nothing else but playing music all day long ... Among a lot of other musical activities, I was for a time a member of a college jazz orchestra. I wasn't a student of that particular school, but as they were short-handed and had nobody available to play baritone sax, I filled in at that position. Right next to me, playing 'lead' tenor sax, was a musician - a musician of that first type. Now music just poured out of this guy like some kind of Niagara. I don't mean that he played fast, or that he played a lot of notes. It's just that the stuff just seemed to come welling up from inside him, to spill over and flood the room with melody. Every note the guy played was musical.

Sitting next to this incredible fountain was an astonishing, eye-opening education for me. Because you see, without knowing it, I was a musician of the second type; I was one of those who 'played at' music. Up to that point, I had never even suspected the existence of these two types I have been describing. All musicians were pretty much the same to me. Of course, some of them were better at it than others, and some had been doing it longer and had acquired more skills, but these were only differences of degree, not of type. The world of music was like a long ladder that we were all climbing. I was still in the middle somewhere, but had no doubts about my ability to climb to a level near the top. It just needed time ... and practice.

Why then was I so surprised by this man's playing? What had I been doing all along up to that point? As I said, I had been playing at music. It was a kind of intellectual exercise. There was a piece of paper, covered in a number of black dots coded with certain meanings. Here was a length of pipe, pierced with holes in a certain fashion. Fingers went in this place and that place. Read the music, decode the meaning, blow some air in the end, make the appropriate finger movements, and ... presto! Out came music!

I had even learned to make my performances somewhat expressive, all on the basis of these intellectual rules. See this phrase in the Mozart concerto - repeated three times, each one a tone higher? No problem. Straight through the first iteration. A little louder for the second. And then for the third, a slight hesitation, and then a good push on the first note of the phrase ... Ah that Mozart ... so expressive!

And all the time that I thought I was making music, it was just a game. I might as well have been a programmed robot. To me, that's just what music was! It never occured to me that there was anything else underneath it. Yes, I knew that some players could play without printed music sheets, jazz improvisers for example. But to my mind these were simply people living in a different room of the vast music 'mansion', who had just learned a slightly different set of codes and rules. They weren't really any different from me. We were all ... musicians.

But then, as I mentioned, I heard that friend ... Whether he was playing from printed music, or just playing whatever came into his head, it made no difference. It was music. There was no hiding from the truth any longer. This ... was music! What made it even worse, was that he praised my playing. Yes, I may have been a better 'decoder' than he, but all of a sudden, those skills didn't seem quite so satisfying any more. And then, some time shortly after this experience, when I was beaten in an audition for the local symphony orchestra by a flutist who was a better 'decoder' than I ... Well, music didn't seem to be quite as much fun anymore.

I didn't simply give up outright. I tried to break away from the 'tyrannical' classical training, to get away from reading music. I took up the jazz tenor sax. But what did I do with it? Got out my pencil and transcribed into written notation an entire jazz album by a famous saxophonist! I took up the bass guitar, and organized a rock band. But what did I do with it? Got out my pencil and made written arrangements of dozens of songs! Finally, the message sunk in, and I turned to other activities, first the business world, then computer programming, and then eventually, to woodblock printmaking.

I should perhaps make it clear that I am not suggesting that all those who are not 'real' musicians should hang up their instruments and quit music. If it gives them pleasure, then of course they should continue. That young trumpet player in the park was quite definitely 'playing at' music, but I would be the last person to suggest he quit. But for me, once I had come to feel that I was a phony, somebody pretending to be something he was not, then it was impossible for me to continue.

Maybe one day, when more years have passed by, perhaps I will take up music again. I am not ready for it yet, but if I do, it will be as a dilettante, as a person just happy to tootle away on his instrument, decoding that stream of black marks on the page. There will be no illusions about being a 'musician'.

I think it might be fun.

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)

This summer is stretching out longer and ever longer. Already we're well into September, and the days are still so hot as to stifle all good intentions towards the woodblock waiting on my carving bench. I carve for a while in the morning, and then again late in the evening, but during the middle of the day ...

That 'left-over' time is not wasted, though. Not at all. I know the weather will be turning soon, and as there won't be many more chances for it, I've been spending a fair bit of time relaxing in the park. There is a very enjoyable public space not too far from my apartment, a pleasant grassy hill overlooking the Tama River, on which shade trees are spotted here and there. The wide slope rolls gently down from a line of bushes at the top, to a jogging path that runs along the base. I usually have it pretty much to myself, and this is a bit of a mystery to me, for this is one of the most comfortable, inviting, public places to be found anywhere near my home. It's not just the scenery, although the view across the valley is pleasant, and it's not the peace and quiet, although traffic noises are almost completely absent. It's the grass. The turf on this hill, unlike the thin, withered stuff that passes for grass in most Japanese parks, is thick, green and lush. I don't know how this has come about, whether by special effort on the part of the parks board, or simply by accident of soil and climate, but it is truly a most unusual thing to find in Japan.

I learned early on in my time in this country that one indispensable accompaniment to any trip to a local park was a plastic 'picnic sheet', to be spread out on the ground wherever one wished to sit and relax. Down goes the sheet, off go the shoes, and that particular spot is thus transformed into ones own private space. Such a sheet is absolutely essential, as the ground in Japanese parks, even if nominally 'grassy', is always hard and dusty. Sitting down without it would be like sitting in the middle of a parking lot. Such is the typical Japanese park, even in a quite progressive city like my Hamura. It's the norm. Nobody thinks of complaining, or suggesting to the parks office that things could be different.

I used to think that climate might have been the reason for our poor Japanese park grass. Perhaps the winter was too cold and dry, or something of that sort. But then one day, on a visit to the nearby American air base at Yokota, during one of their annual 'open house' events, I was surprised to find that many areas inside the fence were ... you guessed it ... deep green, soft lawns. As Hamura obviously shares the same climate and soil conditions as this adjoining air base, it would seem to indicate that our parks too could be clothed in such green, if the knowledge and desire was there.

But I'm not as interested in complaining about our dusty parks, as I am in enjoying this special one that I've found. It's about ten minutes by bicycle from my apartment, and I frequently find myself drawn to it whenever I've been out somewhere in that direction. I don't need one of those plastic sheets for this place, so I can drop in anytime! And what do I do there? Can I tell you without fear of being deported for 'un-Japanese' activities?

I daydream. I watch the clouds. I idly follow the progress of the people jogging back and forth along the pathway, kind of like watching some kind of irregular tennis game ... left, right, left, left, right ... Sometimes I pretend to work. I lie there with my essay notebook open, ready for inspiration to strike, but it usually doesn't ... not there on that peaceful hill, where the grass is just too comfortable, just not conducive to making any effort ... Mostly, it's just daydreaming. I'd be embarrassed to tell you how many hours I've 'wasted' there lying on that grass, and as I write this now, it strikes me that this perhaps tells us why Japanese parks are usually not so comfortable. If they were more pleasant places in which to spend time, then perhaps that's exactly what people would do. Lie around in the park. What would deep lush grass do to the Japanese work ethic? Is it the barren-ness of Japan's parks that is responsible for her economic success?

Just think. Maybe this could be a new weapon in the international trade wars ... If Japan's economic competitors were to send airborne missions to fly over all the parks here dropping the right kind of grass seed, maybe industrial production would then take a nosedive. Japan could retaliate, spraying grass killer over parks overseas ...

But see, there I'm proving my point. That kind of silly thought is exactly the kind of thing that comes to mind as you lie on your back on the turf, watching the clouds sail by. So see if you can find a place like this near your home. And if you can't, then you're welcome to come and share 'my' little grassy hill. There's lots of room. Come on over ... but leave your picnic sheet at home!

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 08:48 PM | Comments (0)

I spent some time this afternoon looking back at the various essays I've written over the past couple of months, not so much to look for things that needed correcting or alteration (although there was certainly no shortage of those), but rather to try and get an overview of the kind of things that I had been writing about. During this recent spate of writing, I haven't had any kind of general 'theme' or purpose in mind, and I see that as a consequence the topics have varied widely. To my mind, that's all to the good. I would like to think that eventually, with enough of this kind of practice, I could perhaps develop into the kind of writer who would have something interesting to say on topics that ranged over many different fields. But I was also struck very strongly by the generally 'trivial' nature of many of these pieces, and (don't laugh!), I can't really decide if that's bad or good. Let me try and explain.

As part of my attempts to become a better essay writer, I have been reading works by many practitioners of this art, both people living today, and writers from years past. Some of these essayists have bored me, most have at least kept my attention, and some have brought a smile to my face, or a feeling of warmth to my heart. Now of course, as it is this latter group that I would wish to emulate, it is to these that I have paid the most attention. Why have I enjoyed their work? What is it that separates these writers from the other two groups? I have read and re-read their essays, looking for answers to these questions.

One thing I did notice was that one factor seemed common to a great number of the essays I enjoyed the most - the fact that they were 'familiar'. In each case, the writer spoke in his own voice, and not in an impersonal format. I knew who was writing. He was not afraid to speak to me directly, and in an open, honest way. The language is clear and simple, and the written style is sometimes quite similar to actual conversational language.

But they were familiar in another sense too. Whether it was J.B. Priestley talking about his own face, A.A. Milne discussing a mislaid train ticket, Robert Lynd meeting a farmer one morning, Joseph Epstein discussing chocolate chip cookies, or Hilaire Belloc talking to a cat (this list could go on for ever, so I'd better cut it short there ...); each of these essays showed some slice of actual life, and usually not any aspect of life that seemed to be of much importance in the 'grand scheme of things'.

Essays written about such topics certainly do seem at first sight to be 'trivial'. Many of the little pieces I have written recently - about buying a hamburger, visiting a school, sitting on a river bank, or just eating a bowl of granola - are of this type. Each one just a small episode. But when you read essays that have been written this way, in this familiar and simple idiom, over a period of time you build up a picture of the writer, of his real character and personality, far more than through fiction, where it is the products of the writer's imagination that we see, or with more formal 'serious' writing, which hides behind a wall of impersonality and neutral voice. With familiar writing though, if the author has written plainly enough and without artifice, then the reader starts to imbibe something of his philosophy and his beliefs, in an almost subliminal fashion.

Once upon a time, we had Aesop's Fables to attempt to guide us in shaping a personal philosophy ('and the moral of the story is ...'). Since then, a great many serious authors have written outright statements of their philosophy, outlining explicitly how people should shape their societies, and how they should behave. But it seems to me that far more than those more overt propagandists, it is actually the 'familiar' essayists who are the most effective at philosophical guidance. These men though, don't tell us how we should be living. They simply tell us about their experiences and activities. And if they do their job well, if they make themselves so personable to us that we listen to them as we would to an old friend, then their 'message' will start to come across.

For of course they do have a message. Just as do the 'real' philosophers with their heavy tomes, these men also wish to offer us their views on how our lives, and society in general, could be organized. But rather than preach at us from a pulpit, they resort to more subtle means. Sitting together with us in conversation. One-way conversation it may be, from the printed page into our eyes, but conversation nonetheless.

I feel that these men, some of whom I mentioned above, are friends of mine. Whether they are long dead, or still with us, I feel that they are friends. I don't always agree with what they have to say, but I do know that they have influenced me, just as have my 'real', here-in-person friends. Perhaps I am fooling myself when I say this, for I don't think I'm quite ready to join this capable group of men of whom I have been speaking, but I would like to think that one day, my voice too could speak with that kind of influence.

I suppose it is implicit in what I say, that I feel like I have indeed something to offer. Something to say to the world. Well, I'm far from sure about that, just as I'm far from sure that there really is anything new left under the sun anyway. The more I read, the more I come to think that it has 'all been done' and has 'all been said'. Those men of the past have covered all the bases. But I suppose that, just as each man in turn has to discover for himself what life is about, so does each age need its own people to talk about the mysteries ...

In my own essays so far, I don't think I've offered much that was original, but I do hope that I'm gradually learning to express clearly what ideas I do have, and what is more important, to express them familiarly. Like to read some more? Pull up a comfortable chair ... let's talk!

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)

She came in at the best possible time. The noon-time rush of visitors had tapered off, and the gallery was once again peaceful. Only about half a dozen people were left in the room looking over my woodblock prints, just enough to make the place feel a bit active, but not enough to feel crowded.

As I did with all the visitors when it wasn't too busy for it, I greeted her and explained what sort of things she would see on display. Her voice was soft, but she spoke with confidence, her clothes were quietly elegant, and she moved about with grace. I left her to take in the exhibits, but while I chatted with some of the other visitors, a group of college girls, I watched her stroll about the room.

She spent some time in quiet contemplation of the prints, before approaching me again. We talked a bit about my work, and then, after a momentary hesitation, as if she were deciding whether or not to speak in such a way to a stranger, she spoke to me of her feelings about one of the poems. The most well-known poem in the set, probably the most famous in the entire Japanese 'waka' canon - Ono no Komachi's cry over her lost youthful beauty:

And now that the flowers
Have all faded,
In the lingering rain,
In vain I make my way
Through this world of ours.

She spoke about the fact that her feelings toward this poem had changed over the years. That while she may have 'understood' it in a purely intellectual sense at a younger age, now that she was approaching forty, these words had come to have a real heartfelt meaning for her. She felt that now, and only now, had she come to understand what Komachi had been trying to describe. The feelings that come over a woman in her middle years, when her skin loses its smooth youthful glow, and her hair its lustrous blackness ... When she sees men turn to watch a young girl walk by in the street ...

I listened quietly to what she had to say, and while she spoke I wrestled with myself. About how to respond to her ideas. I could have simply talked about how all women presumably pass through similar stages in their lives, and that these thoughts were 'natural' and inevitable. I could perhaps have spouted some such platitude as that.

But I didn't want to tell her this. Maybe it might be true, I don't know, but it wasn't what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her instead what I had been thinking as I watched her stroll around the room, what I had been thinking when I saw her standing near those three college girls, and what I had felt when she then came close to me again ...

I had been thinking about myself, and how the way that I feel towards women has altered over the years. The 20 year old me, and the 40 year old me, are actually quite different people ...

What did that 20 year old see in women, and in particular in the one he had picked as a partner back then? Of course, he mostly saw physical beauty; shapely curves, a slim waist, and that smooth skin and lustrous hair that Komachi missed so much. He heard a cheery voice, accompanied by a quick smile, and a 'fresh' bright personality. Pretty much just like those three students standing over there ...

But what then of the 40 year old me ... A normal man, right? Doesn't he want the same things? Well, maybe. Of course he's still attracted by a good shape, but he's now far more aware of how that shape is a reflection of the woman inside. As she walks, he can see her personality expressed in her movements. Not quick and flighty, but confident and experienced. As she speaks, he can hear her character in the tone of her voice, not fresh and bouncy perhaps, but measured and well paced. As she listens when he speaks, he can see in her eyes and expression, her reactions to his words, because she has shared enough years of experience to understand ...

And now here in the gallery, I, the 40 year old I, had watched this woman walk around the room ... and I had enjoyed what I had seen. I had seen her stand near to those younger girls, and had felt that there was 'no comparison' ... And I had then listened to her speak to me about 'losing her attractiveness'! She was concerned about some gray hairs! Here was a woman telling me of her self-image as a 'fading flower', but whom I viewed as someone becoming more attractive year by year ...

So what do you think I should have done? What should I have said to her? I have never found it easy to talk with women under the best of circumstances, and I was afraid that if I spoke to her of these things, she would think that I was just trying to be 'smooth' with her.

I am sorry to admit that I couldn't find the courage. I kept my thoughts to myself, and just spoke in some inconsequential way. And then some minutes later, as she slowly made her way to the door, and left the gallery, I felt ashamed of my reticence. Wouldn't she have been pleased by such ideas? Wouldn't she have walked away feeling perhaps just a little bit warmer? I guess I'll never know. I was simply unable to tell her what I thought. But you who read this, you for whom Ono no Komachi's poem evokes similar feelings. At least I've been able to tell you ...

As a woman passes out of her 20's, through her 30's and on into her 40's, so do the men around her. And while the 20 year old man may indeed be most attracted by that 20 year old girl; as he grows older, so does his idea of a suitable mate change. Her hair now perhaps may have a touch of grey ... Her waist may be missing that delicate slimness ... Her movements might be no longer quite so quick ... But what she has lost in youthful 'freshness', has been more than compensated for by her mature elegance.

So yes, my head will still turn on the street to follow young college girls, but don't misunderstand the gesture. They are not suitable partners for me. At least not yet. Not until they understand something of how Ono no Komachi felt ...

(September 1994)

Posted by Dave Bull at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)