A Japanese parable on imperfection
A light rain pinged on top crowded tin roofs and the frail old potter paced below the alleyway around his cooling ceramic. Canopied from the damp, he circled a patio table where his finished pot was perched, carefully assessing its fire-settled state. Slowing his paces, he nodded glibly, muttered a few notes to himself, and took a low resigned breath. After a long stalled pause, breaking the preponderance of his own reflections, he stretched out one long finger and pressed the vase over, sailing it into sprawling splinters across the cobblestone.
“Crazy old fool, did you see that? It’s almost like he did that on purpose. Are you very proud of yourself over there?” The young man shouted across the alleyway, under cover from the rain at an open air sushi bar, just beside the potter’s streetside kiln. Turning back to his companion, Jacob took a swig of sake from his perched barstool below the dripping awnings before continuing. “Nothing’s sacred.”
“Anyways, where was I? Boring you to tears about my screenplay, no doubt?” Jacob wrapped up his rantings by hopelessly declaring it was a mess. He had been lamenting his troubles, simply unable to get his original vision untangled. “But I’ve prattled on about it long enough. Tell me, how was Japanese class this week?”
His companion Sonia crossed her legs under his barstool, deftly pulling herself closer, as she reverently cusped both hands around her own ceramic cup. She replied disinterestedly that the lessons were fine and her fluency was coming along. Then perking up a little, “you know what’s kind of cool, I’m starting to dream in Japanese more often now. We should really be practicing now, the two of us. Still, I feel so paranoid sometimes in public. Like my accent is putting people off. I can see it wash over the faces of anyone I try to talk to. Strangers mostly, faking politeness, nodding along. It’s embarrassing.”
Sonia could tell the young man was still distracted by the potter fussing around behind them, and changed the subject. “But speaking of sacred things, I meant to tell you, our film crew took a road trip last weekend, scouting out some old temples for the commercial shoot. It was unbelievable! Only two days spent outside the city, and I was immediately at peace. And oh, we found the perfect temple, swallowed up by nature, barely on the tourist map. Our own hidden jewel.”
The sushi chef perked up but continued smoothly carving sashimi in front of these two expatriots. “Apologies but, for what it’s worth, I think your Japanese is excellent. Some would say retaining your accent in a foreign language is natural, even endearing.” The chef spoke about the decade in his youth in London apprenticing some of the best gourmands. He admitted to being a bit of a perfectionist. Dedication to detail wasn’t just part of Japanese culture, afterall, it was a requirement for any master chef. And language was no different.
“I wanted everything I studied to be precise. Just like you, Sonia-san,” paying his respect to his regular patroness. “Just like with my knife skills, I wanted everything smooth and clean. Rehearsing my English in front of the mirror, like I was auditioning for a part. I chased the idea of a flawless accent, and I was getting close. But I lost something along the way, my young friends. A piece of my past, perhaps. I began to fear people could tell there was something inauthentic in the character I had invented. You say, you see your accent reflected back in the faces of strangers? Well, Sonia-San, that’s better than trying to fool them into being someone you’re not.”
“That’s very sweet, I think I understand. Arigato.” Sonia added coarsely in an intentionally harsh American accent, before downing another sake “And, Kanpai!” Thinking about his advice, she remembered how that tied to her story and continued.
“So there I was at this forgotten temple, having my own tiny profound experience amidst the other interns. In awe of this timeless gem, and its heartbreaking, crumbling ruins of forgotten history. And then you know what our director started doing? Ordering us to start cleaning it up for the shoot. Scrubbing the floors, clearing the broken bricks, covering stained walls with cheap curtains. Next came the boxes of vases, cheap kitschy ornaments, he must’ve picked up wholesale. Junk that didn’t belong. He needed his set piece! He saw a mess that needed to be tidied. All I could see was its majesty. All I could feel was the ghosts of the past swarming the hallowed halls. All I could think was that he was robbing the temple of its perfectly broken little heart.”
Lightning cracked in the distant mountains looming beyond the city skyline. But the wise old potter took no shelter, still chuckling gleefully to himself, crouching like a frog and mindfully collecting the pieces of his vase one at a time. He spread them out across his table with sloth-like deliberation, before pausing again to tip his head back into the drizzling rain.
“Oh look, now, he cares about his mess? Have you ever seen such a thing?” The disquieted young man scratched his chin on his shoulder before returning his gaze to Sonia and the chef, glaring at him with disappointment.
“Jacob-san, you should not ignore your beautiful companion, especially one as wise as her.” The master chef praised Sonia for finding a way to invite the sacred into her life. Adding solemnly that it only takes one moment of high awareness, like that trip to the temple, to attune oneself to something divine. “You may be trying to do that now, Jacob-san, with that wise potter broadcasting so much of your attention. But forgive me for saying, it feels like you are resisting the message. Try letting go.” He slid forward a fresh plate of translucently sliced sashimi and bright orange sea urchin roe, bowing deeply with his compliments.
“Yeah, what’s got you so tied up in knots about that poor old man, he seems happy? Could you be jealous maybe because he’s suffering for his art?” Sonia prodded playfully at her sullen friend, while neatly arranging her plate with wasabi and ginger.
“I don’t know, he’s just reminding me how trivial all this work can feel. I’m such a cliche, I know” Jacob sighed and joined in on the freshly carved morsels, brightening up a bit with every sweet pearl snagged between his chopsticks. “It’s not writer’s block, for the record. The script is so very clear in my head, the message so crisp, so pristine. But every word that appears on the page, every line laid down, just feels like a bad corruption of the original idea. Like a charcoal drawing of a sunset on uneven pavement. Oh that’s good, where’s my pen?” Jacob was joking, but immediately started to realize his envy for that rough-skinned old potter.
“I feel you. And if it helps keep your mind off things, I’ll sit here all night, making fun of that nutty little guy.” Sonia marveled over Jacob’s shoulder how the spry old man had taken a crouching stance, puzzling over his broken pieces with the intensity of a chess grandmaster. Carefully spreading them across his table, neatly fussing and ordering them back into position. Lightening strobed soothingly overhead from the distant mountain shrouded clouds.
“It does seem crazy though. That he should be fussing so much over that fractured mess. He’s got a dozen finished vases by the kiln behind him. Why not finish or glaze one of those instead?” Sonia mused, while Jacob’s attention was back on dinner, happily reengaged with the moment.
Dark red curtains parted from the back kitchen room, and the chef’s gaunt young apprentice emerged. Eyes reverently averted as he presented what appeared to be a perfect bowl of rice to his Itamae master. The chef studied it carefully, shifting his gaze from the glistening grains to the shifting feet of his anxious journeyman. “Did this turn out as it was in your mind’s eye?” The young man shook his head and retreated back to start again.
The chef turned back to his patrons, “You see there? Poor kid, probably made forty attempts today on that. He’s only missing one ingredient.” pausing for Jacob’s attention. “Belief. Belief that something that can take shape and surpass the ideal you hold in your mind. Belief that sacred things can evolve and become better by your own hand. That’s real truth. This is the way of the Samurai, of honor in discipline.”
“Ok, Samurai, well then answer me this.” Sonia leaned in, again in her fragmented Japanese, “what advice would you give for my grief stricken friend?”
“It’s simple. Walk the path in pursuit of fleeting perfection. But don’t hold scared these false illusions of what could be. The image of the perfect meal, or the perfect script. That’s not the point.” The sushi master seemed to be demonstrating this, relaxing his precise knife strokes, into delicate carvings that surprised even himself.
He continued in English, “You’ve seen this yourself, Sonia-san, at your temple. You found your way to quiet your mind and look what found you. Where others saw only holes to fill, you found holiness. Where others hear broken accents, we hear belonging. And Jacob-san, although I appreciate your attention has returned to the moment, I believe you’re about to miss the moment that has been calling out to you all along.” The master pointed his knife over Jacob’s shoulder back to the whimsically pleased potter.
Jacob turned back to the back-alley and was awestruck to see the potter had already finished assembling his little fractured vase. One might say, perfectly assembled, back to its original form but that wouldn’t be correct. The potter had made no attempt to hide the glue that bound the pieces. Quite the opposite. Jacob was marveling now at the cracks, mortared richly by ostentatious globs of glitter and gold. The cracks screamed for attention, having been imbued with more meaning than the vase itself. This was the artform that Jacob would learn to call Kintsugi. And the chef explained, this was the potter’s meditation, his celebration of reality, which he embraced each day. Jacob’s first thought was to ask if the potter would also be called Samurai.
“Ha, no San. He is much stronger. And a wiser master than I. Because he embraces Kintsugi, he transcends that of the Samurai. Laughs at my dedication towards precision, keeps me humble. He is attuned to a greater truth. That silly old man, as you say, he is Kitsune, the nine-tailed fox. The Kitsune is a prankster and a truthsayer. He wields chaos as his tool, enjoys its absurdity. The Kitsune pokes cracks in the sacred and celebrates the imperfections that surround us. He pokes back at the disorder that would seek to enslave us, and thus is his own master.”
Jacob thought for a while, and then finally nodded. Sonia patted her contented friend on the shoulder, as he seemed washed with a new peace of mind. The lightning had faded beyond the mountains, and the rain clouds were breaking in the night sky. Sonia insisted on paying the bill, her tribute to Jacob’s troubled day. Jacob scooted away momentarily while the young lady sorted the check and gave a graceful bow to their teacher.
By the time she turned to leave, Jacob had returned swiftly with a small gift. He had been busy paying his own tribute to the wise old Kitsune by the alleyway kiln. He presented this token of gratitude to Sonia for listening to all his woes. A glossy lacquered tea bowl, a finished piece off the potter’s shelf. Cracked beyond its maker’s first intention. Made perfect by belief, its own reason for being. A sacred vow that he would never lose himself to self-pity again.
Paul Carreo 