Tea time

Music is a funny thing. It's the main reason the time I have to spend in trains when going to Yokohama doesn't kill me - my iPod is a veritable lifesaver. I once forgot it at home when going to practise, and had to listen to the conversations of my fellow passengers... Horrible. Makes you really really hate japanese teenagers.

The only problem is that I find myself unable to resist reacting to the music I'm listening. This means that even though I try not to I'm basically moving to the rhytm: tapping, twitching, nodding and moving my hips. If the rest of the world would be hearing the music this wouldn't of course be a problem - but they don't. I'm afraid I look quite the madwoman, and just hope with all my might that they see the iPod and understand that there might actually be a reason for all my twitching movements, something other than mental problems. *g*

Maybe that's why I'm never bothered when I walk back home alone in the middle of the night from the zazenkai. You never know what a crazy woman might do, better to leave her alone.

And I like my lonely walks especially on monday mornings, listening to music, waking up slowly on my way to the temple, not having to speak to anyone before the morning meal is over around 7.40am. Usually we then sit around until about 8am when people start leaving for work and I head back to Waseda. Last monday was different though, Manabe-san got carried away by explaining various things, like the differences between the different degrees of taking monastic vows and which parts of the ceremony are the same as what's used in buddhist funerals. So, we stayed talking until 9am, after which I accompanied him to a wagashiya where he bought sweets for the evening's tea ceremony practise - and then it was already time to meet Maru-san's wife for the kabuki. After kabuki and lunch I had just enough time to get back to the dorm, take a shower and then head back to Myôgadani for the tea ceremony.

Never sit 3 temae (one "serving" ceremony) one after another. My legs were so dead after that... I was told to bring white socks, and since our washing machines wash only with cold water white clothes are nearly impossible to get clean - meaning all my normal white socks have almost gray soles by now. So, I decided to opt for my tabi, earning some more "weird gaijin" -points (I have plenty of them by now...). The downside of tabi is that there's a seam running on top which starts hurting after sitting for some time in seiza - or if it's a bad day it can hurt straight from the beginning too. It's like sometimes it's easier to do 40min of zazen with nearly no pain, and then again last monday I was forced to lift one foot in the end because the pain in my right hip joint was so bad that I was almost in tears. Or sometimes the legs fall asleep faster than at other times. Or sometimes you can climb stairs without any pain, and sometimes... Anyways, it's been ages since my few Urasenke experiences (the school, which MIGHT be Sôhen ryû but don't quote me on that, resembles Urasenke a lot since it's descended from it), but I started to get the hang of it on the last time. I'd like to go again, but I don't think I can come every week, and besides they're doing it both on monday and tuesday nights - too much drinking and late nights... It's a tough decision between really interesting conversations and being dead tired.

And then for some haiku. I was told to choose which haiku I wanted to have calligraphied by Kis-san, and it was decided that it has to be one of my original versions, not the corrected ones... Now I just hope the calligraphy will be so artistic that no one will be able to read the poems themselves. *g* I always get the same comment for them: they're "cute" and very "reddo-rashii" (very like me), and the ideas are good. Reading between the lines - now I just need to make the text itself more haiku-like. I always feel like as if my vocabulary is about the equivalent of that of a 5 y.o. kid. But hey, isshôkenmei, isshôkenmei... Trying is what matters. I'd like to continue writing the haiku in Finland too, but without a teacher that would be very difficult - maybe Maruyama-san would take me as a correspondence student?