I dragged myself out of bed early once again and rode into the mountains, this time straight up the promising road I’d identified the day before. Alas: it didn’t lead much farther than I’d already taken it, or reveal any more than I’d already found. Past a small remote cluster of houses, it narrowed to a gravel path forbidden to any but locals–and I’m the sort of guy who generally obeys signs, especially under circumstances like these. A small disappointment but a nice ride regardless. Now I have to decide on the next direction to explore.

The whole school dressed formally and assembled in the biggest of the second-floor classrooms to hear an address from the principal, who is of course Oiemoto. For me this was an exercise in patience, sitting up straight and looking alert for an hour and a half while not understanding a thing that was being said to me. Heck, I could barely hear any of it to begin with: Midorikai, typically, sat at the back of the room, and Oiemoto’s microphone didn’t compensate for my worsening hearing. Gary-sensei has promised to provide a rough translation when he’s deciphered his notes. Our senpai tell us that these lectures are usually pretty interesting. Oiemoto graduated from Dōshisha with a degree in psychology, and his interests extend far beyond tea.

A hot afternoon in the tea room despite the air conditioner running. Ro-sensei clearly felt the heat too, mopping himself frequently with a hand towel and opening every window he could find to open. Despite the air conditioner running. Another in the series of kazari temae today, this one showcasing the chaire.

Then I went to war with a bowl of ash, and lost. In 45 minutes, I started my haigata, got disgusted and destroyed what I’d done, started it again, gave up, started once more, and gave up for good. Threw around my haisaji a bit for good measure, and got worried looks from the Japanese students fighting with their own haigata. I might have calmed myself down and finished the job except that I knew it didn’t actually have to be done until Monday, so I’d have the opportunity to come back to it with a better attitude.

I walked out of school into the aforementioned downpour, ate quickly, still in a foul mood, and retreated to my Fortress of Solitude to pull myself together with the help of some strong air conditioning. Restored equilibrium and spent the evening quietly.

Hlwatsch-sensei made an appearance to continue his survey of the history of Japan, addressing this time roughly the same era as last time, but from a different angle. Previously, we learned about the first importation, adoption, and rejection of Christianity; today we got the story of the consolidation of power in Japan under Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.

After lunch: flower-induced panic. If I haven’t mentioned it before: I’m terrified of arranging the flowers for the tea room. I feel like everyone else is able to look at the flowers and see things I can’t. By now the fear is just feeding itself, of course: I go into the task with an attitude that ensures I won’t be able to perform it. This time the attitude was compounded by my having somehow gotten behind schedule. Anita had to step in to do the arrangement in one of our two practice rooms, and Tanja had to help me finish the one I’d started, while reminding me to breathe deep and try to relax.

Then on to shozumi disaster. I’d only had time and energy enough the night before to practice either charcoal or tea, and I’d chosen tea. That might have been a mistake. Having watched Nadja do shozumi the previous day, I blithely volunteered to give it a go this time around. As I’ve written before, I can watch a process very closely and still be completely unable to replicate it; I have to physically do a thing to learn it. So Hamana-sensei, his patience sorely tried, had to talk me point by point through the charcoal-laying procedure.

You may be curious about exactly what’s involved. Or not; I’ll describe it anyhow.

Before a tea function gets underway, the host places three burning lengths of charcoal called shitabi (“under-fire”) in the furo (or ro, depending on season), and then sets the kama atop it. After the guests are seated, the host brings in a basket containing a particular selection of charcoal pieces, metal chopsticks for handling the charcoal, metal rings for lifting the kama, a cluster of three large feathers bound together for dusting the furo and kama, and the incense box. He sets the basket down and makes another trip out of the room for a basin containing a pile of white ash that supports an ash spoon. Then, as methodically as he’ll make the tea, he produces from the front of his kimono a thick folded pad of white paper and sets it on the tatami; he lifts the kama off of the furo and sets it on the paper; he dusts the rim of the furo with the feathers; he adds charcoal and uses the ash spoon to cut a tiny divot out of the front of the furo’s ash (I haven’t learned the significance of this yet); he dusts again; he adds incense and dusts yet again; he replaces the kama and dusts it; and he takes the basket and basin away, leaving the incense box for the guest’s inspection.

Done well, this is all very impressive–especially after you’ve tried manipulating charcoal with big metal chopsticks yourself. Of course, I didn’t do it well at all on my first try. Not to worry: I won’t lack opportunities to refine my technique.

With the fire going (or on its way to going, we hoped) properly, we moved on to tea. Everything we’ve done up until now has been foundational; now we begin tackling a set of sixteen procedures called the konarai: “small learning.” The first is kinindate: a method for serving tea to a person of noble rank. Needless to say, opportunities to use it practically rarely come up, but Rikyū wanted his students to learn it early so that they’d be able to treat all guests as if they were nobility. Kinindate uses a tana, a tea bowl on an unlacquered wooden stand, and a special pedestal for serving sweets; the guest sits on the “highest” tatami–usually reserved in our practices for teachers’ use; and a hantō (helper) shuttles the tea bowl and dōgu for haiken between the host and guest.

Since I’d started the afternoon by doing sumidemae, I didn’t get to try kinindate until everyone else had done it, by which point my legs were no longer playing nice. Happily, since the temae isn’t so different from the tana usucha we’d done previously, I didn’t make too abhorrent a mess of my first attempt.

The weather was cool and cloudy but without any threat of rain, so Noh was back on the schedule. I cleaned tatami in a hurry and bolted my supper, then changed clothes and hopped a train to Heian Shrine with Anita and Almerindo. We approached the enormous complex from the south, walking beneath the immense red torī straddling the street, and walked through the gate into a sizable crowd. The large gravel courtyard had been given over to the two days of performances: chairs on risers at the back, chairs on the ground to the sides, low platforms covered with blue felt in the middle–closer to the action, but less comfortable, so more available. At the north end, an open Noh stage, the top of its framework fluttering with folded strips of Shinto-paper. On the ground surrounding the stage, wood fires burned in iron baskets on stands, constantly tended by priests.

We arrived late, just as the evening’s second play was concluding. There was a shuffling of spectators and we were able to find ourselves some space on one of the blue platforms; we left our shoes on the ground and hunkered on down. A kyōgen comedy began. Like all the presentations on this year’s program (The 59th annual “Takigi Noh” function), it was a tribute to The Tale of Genji; some of the plays were traditional Noh-repertoire adaptations of episodes from the novel, but this was an original piece. Two Heian playboys competing for one woman, who turns out to be an ancient crone. Funny despite my not understanding the dialogue.

The sky darkened by and by, leaving the performers in the light of electric bulbs and the constantly-stoked fire baskets. We ate chocolate and senbei as the final play of the evening began. Genji’s lover (Wife? Do I care?) lies gravely ill; a shaman and a priest are called in to heal her. The source of her affliction turns out to be one of Genji’s former lovers, so jealous that her living spirit has possessed and sickened the New Woman. In the end, the spirit appears in frightening demonic guise and does battle with the old priest, whose only apparent weapon is a string of prayer beads that he rubs vigorously, desperately between his palms. Contrary to my expectations, this seems to do the trick in the end.

Since this was Noh, of course, all of the above took an incredibly long time while performers declaimed in funny voices and moved very slowly. I can’t claim to have enjoyed it, exactly, but I was glad to have gone. Pretty costumes, an ancient art form worth seeing at least once just to say you have, and a perfect setting: the cool night, the primal roaring fires, the buildings of the shrine otherworldly at the edge of the dancing light.

And then once again back to the century in progress, onto a train and up an elevator and into bed.

This one started promisingly enough, with a nice late-morning laid-back class on Noh from Teele-sensei up at the girls’ dorm. We learned about the musical notation system for Noh chanting and tried a few lines ourselves; butchered them, of course. (Insert snarky “how could you tell?” joke here. Noh is definitely an acquired taste. And I don’t expect to acquire it myself.) Then we walked around stiffly with giant fans for awhile, and concluded by buying tickets from Teele-sensei to next weekend’s big annual outdoor Noh festival at Heian shrine. That’s when I noticed that my wallet was missing.

I didn’t panic at first, as I assumed I’d just left it in my room. We went off to lunch, and then to class, where I couldn’t worry about my wallet because I was too busy having an awful time trying to learn something new and difficult from the one teacher we have who speaks absolutely no English. Why we were dropped into koicha with Ro-sensei supervising, and with no preparation at all, is beyond me.

It’s not that it’s altogether different from the usucha we’ve been doing for weeks and weeks. It’s that it’s just different enough to throw you off your game such that you start screwing up even the bits that are identical. Details to follow probably in my next post.

Traditionally, in the study of tea, if you have watched someone else being taught something, you are considered to have been taught that something yourself. I’m here to report that, at least in my case, this is a load of rubbish. I have no gift for movement, and even after paying excruciatingly close attention to three classmates’ temae, I found myself unable to replicate the procedures. (Happily, we’re not actually held to the traditional expectations; apparently these days it only really applies to the high-level apprentices who observe Oiemoto giving lessons.)

The good news is that although I got frustrated, I didn’t come as close to losing my cool as I did at the chaji the day before. I saved that for after class, when I made a thorough mess of a haigata. I’m the only person in the program, I’m sure, who’s getting worse with practice. I resisted the temptation to drive my pointy ash spoon into my thigh, but only just. Sulked off to dinner, didn’t talk to anyone else at the table, ate quickly and retreated to my room.

Where I couldn’t find my wallet. By now I had no cool left to keep. Tore the room apart, patted down every pair of pants to make sure it wasn’t in a pocket. Called Anita and asked her to check the room in which we’d had Noh class in the morning. It was being used; I’d have to stop by in a couple of hours.

I really could have used a drink, but the last of my money was missing, along with my alien registration card, American bank card, Hawaii driver license, and school ID. I distracted myself by blogging for a while, then biked up to the girls’ dorm.

Where Anita, Tanawat, and Sean had just failed to find my wallet in a thorough sweep of the room.

I went numb. Could barely think straight enough to decide on a time to check the local police station with Anita in the morning. Felt awful that she was kind enough to offer to go with me. Stumbled out the door and rode home, de-sprocketing (?) my bike’s ever-loosening chain twice on the way. Tore the room apart again and then lay down on the floor amidst the mess, staring at the wall.

I knew even at the time that my reaction was out of proportion to the incident. I’ve had to replace the contents of lost and stolen wallets more than once. (Though the language barrier would make doing it this time a particular bitch.) But something in me is out of balance, and I’m starting to wonder if it isn’t chemical, because it only comes up from time to time, and it seems to be getting worse, almost totally crippling me when I hit a really bad spell.

Eventually I pulled myself together and decided on one more careful investigation of the apartment, though I had what I thought was a fairly accurate memory of putting the wallet into my bag in the morning. I started with the pair of pants I’d worn the night before and that I’d already squeezed quite thoroughly in search of bulges. This time I actually slid my fingers into the pockets.

Where, of course, I found the damned wallet.

Made apologies to some people for my mood and went down to Lawson for a beer. Stopped by the 2nd-floor practice room on a hunch, and found Szymon helping Tanawat and Sean with their koicha practice, so I joined in and did a temae with imaginary tea and water.

Went to bed very very tired but with balance restored to the Force.

We started the day, as we did last time, by dusting, sweeping, and wiping down the rooms we’d use at the Chadō Kaikan building across the street from Konnichian. Ordinarily, of course, guests don’t do any of the grunt work for a chaji, but Midorikai ain’t ordinary, and having to help out instills a great appreciation for the amount of effort required to pull off an event like this. Besides, it’s pleasant work, especially with many hands. Once the inside spaces were spick-and-span, we moved outside to sweep the garden paths, scrub out the tsukubai–we’d be putting water from it into our mouths later, after all–and pick up thousands of fallen bamboo leaves. This last is a Sisyphean task if there ever was one; every time a breeze stirs, dozens more leaves flutter mockingly down to the ground. And today we had plenty of breeze, on account of a typhoon that apparently passed last night just close enough to give us a wet morning followed by a dry but brisk and blustery day.

Then we strapped ourselves into kimono and (for the men-folk) hakama: I wore my brand-new tailor-made gift-from-Oiemoto kimono and nagajuban, and boy are they ever things of beauty. Polyester like my off-the-shelf ones, as far as I know, but the similarity ends there. Much better fabric, for one: soft and heavy, they drape naturally and comfortably. Then, of course, there’s the fact that they were actually sewn to my measurements. Clothes that fit: a novel concept! I’m reluctant to get back into the cheap stuff tomorrow, but I really do have to keep the nice garments nice by saving them for special occasions.

We ate lunch very carefully to avoid food-splatters, and then met Gary-sensei, who would coach us guests through our roles in the chaji. We entered Chadō Kaikan, took off our tabi covers, and made our way into the machiai, or waiting room. Blue felt mosen carpets covered the middle of the room; the tabakobon sat in the corner where I was expected to sit as shōkyaku. It had tall sides with oval-shaped cut-outs, and no handle; the hiire sitting on it was porcelain decorated with pictures from a famous old Chinese scroll on which a bunch of animals cavort and (if I recall correctly) take a somewhat irreverent attitude toward Buddhist symbolism. The kakemono said something about the swallow flying straight despite sideways-blowing winds; I couldn’t read any of it but I liked the little ink painting of the swallow itself at the top. Anita had also decorated the wakidoko shelf next to the tokonoma with a pair of decorative balls that I think she later said were in the image of traditional children’s playthings, sitting on some gorgeous squares of fabric.

Szymon, hantō for the event, brought in osayu in little porcelain kumidashiwan with blue vertical stripes, using a tray of the style called koma because it’s decorated with the concentric red and green and yellow circles of a spinning top seen from the…er…top. I neglected to ask our host later about the water’s source, but I’d run into Szymon in the morning when he was carrying it in a giant plastic tub, so I knew he’d gotten it very early from a nearby temple known for its water–with good reason, too; it’s quite tasty. Apparently, though, the priests or monks or whatever don’t look kindly on people who bring containers bigger than a liter or two to fill, so obtaining enough water for a chaji requires some real persistence on top of the baseline bother of having to go out early in the morning and then having to lug back a heavy tub.

We moved then to the koshikakemachiai and sat on straw cushions atop wobbly wooden stools; the second tabakobon had cut-outs in the sides inspired by an old Chinese coin, one of the seven (?) traditional Japanese treasures (takara, a recurring iconographic theme). It was made, Gary-sensei said, probably of mulberry wood, and had a dark bamboo handle. Switched if I can remember anything about the hiire, though.

Host appeared; everyone bowed. Host poured fresh water into tsukubai and disappeared again. One by one we slipped on the straw rojizori sandals (much less awkward for me than last time, since I’m in tabi now, but they’re still only about half the size of my feet) and purified our hands and mouths on our way into the tearoom itself.

The scroll made another reference to wind, saying something about the rustling leaves creating it, which apparently was a point of contention in 10th or 11th-century Chinese philosophy, according to Gary-sensei (is there anything he doesn’t know?): does the blowing wind cause the leaves to shake or do the shaking leaves cause the wind to blow? The kama had a peculiar reddish color and little vertical nubbins around its mouth. The tana looked, as Almerindo astutely observed, a lot like a very old-fashioned radio with fabric speaker grilles. Atop it sat the incense box, a little carved-wood thing in a whimsical, unwieldy, and unidentifiable shape that we found out later was some funny hat of yore. Next to that sat…what? Something. The big feather cluster for the charcoal-laying, perhaps. I don’t recall.

This is about when I stopped having a good day.

Everyone reading this (well, everyone I know of who’s reading this) knows already that I tend to have expectations of myself that we might generously call unrealistic. That served me especially poorly today, when I had to deliver memorized (sort of) lines, make conversation with the host, and perform other little tasks I’d never performed before. I was too busy failing to do any of those things very elegantly to remember half as much as I would have liked about the dōgu (like their names), let alone to enjoy a damned thing about the afternoon.

My senpai did wonderfully, at least. She started by answering my fumbled questions about stuff in the machiai and the scroll in the present room, then moved on to lay the charcoal (her charcoal carrier, a woven Chinese-style basket) while Gary-sensei pointed out that it might have been nice for me to observe, when Anita explained the wind-themed scrolls, that they were perfect for today’s breezy weather. And while an emotionally healthy person would have said “aha!” and filed that away as useful information and a good example, I took it as a savage attack on my competence, from which I never did recover. Didn’t even want to open my mouth after that; had to be prompted to ask Anita about all the other dōgu; couldn’t do that with any style, either.

You’re quite right: it was my second-ever chaji and my first as shōkyaku. Of course I couldn’t really be expected to do other than I did.

Unfortunately, that’s not how I’m wired. Can’t even think of any credible way to implicate my parents in this. And it doesn’t help that, as bad as I am at taking any criticism, Gary-sensei’s style of guidance in particular seems to press an emotional hot button in me, though I like and respect the guy immensely and know he only means well.

Anyhow, we took a look at the incense box, and then Anita served terrific okashi inspired by the earliest Japanese sweets we know about (from the Tale of Genji, I think): sticky mochi globs between two leaves of…um…plants. Then we took a break. Then we came back to find that the scroll had disappeared and a flower had been placed in the toko: a single tall pale blossom called shakuhaku or shakuhyaku or something; it’s not in my dictionary under any spelling I’ve thought to try. The vase might have been metal. It definitely had, like, angles and curves, but no pattern on the surface. On the tana now sat the chaire, the tea container for making thick tea, about which I remember nothing in particular despite having held and inspected it myself later, in its fabric cover (shifuku), about which: ditto. Next to it: possibly something else, or not.

Thick tea in a black raku bowl and a not-black not-raku bowl. A chashaku that, considering the occasion, might actually have been, as Anita said, carved by Daisōshō and named Ichie, “one meeting.” (In practice we attach famous makers and poetic names to our dōgu just for…er…practice.) A metal kensui that looked like a gourd but that was actually in the shape of a scabbard for an arrowhead. A futaoki that had once been some sort of horse accessory: A hollow brass donut with a ball bearing that rolled around inside sounding like Christmas. More awkward questions, awkward silences, advice taken poorly. A sip of koicha too small, a correction from Gary-sensei, a scowl and a bowl-rim wiping cloth stuffed frustratedly back into my kimono.

More sweets: blue-and-white sugar ribbons bent to evoke running water; sticky sweet red stuff sandwiched between senbei like super-classy Oreos. Thin tea served in bowls I can’t recall. Inspection of the dōgu. Fumbling, fatigue, and frustration. Bow, bow, thank you thank you, that’s a wrap.

Clean, change, eat, clean. Write thank-you letters to Anita for the chaji and to Oiemoto for the kimono. Seek emotional catharsis through public blogging about personal shortcomings.

One last thing. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t still be so hung up on the day’s disappointments except that I was confronted in the evening by a well-meaning classmate who said that he knew I was working on managing my emotions better, but that my frustration in the tearoom is very obvious and makes everyone else in the room uncomfortable. No easy way to bring it up, he said, so he’d just be blunt about it. Which I appreciate, but of course now I feel infinitely worse because it’s not just me and my damage; it’s me and my damage impacting everyone else. Worst of all, it’s impacting people in precisely the way we want to avoid in tea, which prioritizes tranquility and mutual awareness and consideration between host and guest.

Tea isn’t easy. That’s the point, the challenge, the opportunity. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.

Tomorrow blah blah new day blah blah blah.

We took a quiz this morning. The questions would have panicked me four weeks ago; now most of them seemed almost like common sense. I’ll find out tomorrow how I did on the trickier ones. (Out of what material is the hook in the tokonoma on which the scroll hangs made? a.)Metal b.)Wood c.)Bamboo d.)Rattan.)

After the quiz, we met Furiya-sensei, a young academic-looking type (that is, without the knack for shaving cleanly or wearing a necktie gracefully) who happens to actually be an academic. He’s a specialist in ceramics, and he came to tell us about the parts of a tea bowl and give us a very quick overview of the classification system for tea bowls. (Some are named according to their shape; others according to the glazing technique.) Furiya-sensei also brought show-and-tell: four impossibly valuable tea bowls (in excess of some $200,000 all told), the oldest a rough yellowish Korean chawan almost 400 years old. He insisted that we pick each up, run our fingers over every surface, appreciate the weight and thickness and glaze of each. One of the things I truly, deeply love about tea is its tactility. (Imagine my surprise at finding that “tactility” actually appears in the dictionary.) Everything is meant to be touched; in general, things aren’t appreciated from behind glass. Granted, none of the bowls we saw today will likely be used for making tea very often–not by us, certainly–but I’ll stand by my generalization. I’m amazed still that we were permitted to handle the bowls we saw today. (My favorite was the Raku chawan by the 6th-generation master, surprisingly light and warm in the hands.)

After lunch we changed into samue for an afternoon of spring cleaning. May 1st in the tea world is the day on which we change from the ro, the square hearth sunk into the tatami floor, to the furo, the portable brazier that sits slightly farther away from the guests to keep them more comfortable during the hot months. While the Japanese upperclassmen pulled the ro out of the floors and removed the ash from them, squads of other students gave the school a top-to-bottom cleaning. Midorikai worked on the second floor, wiping down tables, chairs, and floor, removing dust from ventilation grates, and cleaning windows. Because the building is cleaned so well and so often, none of this was particularly taxing, and some combination of fine spring weather and whatever was in the foamy aerosol glass cleaning spray had us all in fine, giddy moods.

Mine turned just as soon as we finished cleaning and I went to work on my haigata. I could almost swear that every time I attempt the task I get worse at it. There’s either too much ash in the furo or not enough. My angles are off, and I can’t smooth my slopes. The best advice I’ve gotten is Hamana-sensei’s recommendation to set a strict time limit for each step of the process, and to move on to each next step without obsessing over the condition of the previous. Dragging the operation out over longer than an hour doesn’t produce better results–just madness. As it was, my fifty-minute haigata almost overwhelmed me, by the end, with an impulse to drive my pointed ash scoop into my thighs. Also to break every nearby window. And scream.

I was more or less recovered by the end of supper. Knowing that I’d receive my monthly stipend the next day, I felt liberated to spend 300 of my last 2000 yen on some straw blinds and hooks at the 100-yen shop; my sheer curtains don’t keep out any light, and the sun coming through my east-facing window often wakes me up earlier than I want or need to be up some days.

I finished the day with a lesson from Szymon on how to put on and then properly fold a kimono. Once I had it on, he encouraged me to sit down on a tatami mat in his room and try some tea-preparation movements. The change in clothes may turn out to be more significant than I have been imagining; it’ll take an afternoon of practice before I’m confident to write more on the subject. We’ll make the change on Friday.

Guests proceed from yoritsuke to machiai to koshikake to roji to tea room, taking their cues to move forward from doors left open the width of a flat hand or the beckoning of an assistant. The yoritsuke is for changing into hakama and new tabi socks. In the machiai, there will be a scroll or artwork or what-have-you to admire, and a tabakobon to pass around and examine. This “tobacco tray” holds decorative smoking implements as signs of hospitality; guests admire the camellia pattern drawn in the carefully shaped ash beneath the live coal in the hiire, which once upon a time would have been used to light the pipe. The host’s assistant then brings out osayu, “honorable white hot water” (for some reason, heated water is said to have the color white), to cleanse the guests’ palates and give them a taste of the water that will be used to prepare the tea; they will later ask the host where it was specially drawn from.

The koshikake is traditionally a covered bench with sitting cushions and another tabakobon. From here the guests can see the host emerge from the nearby tea house to fill the tsukubai, the large stone basin, with fresh water. After the host has retreated, the guests one by one walk down the garden (roji) path, wash their hands and mouths at the tsukubai in the same fashion one uses at shrines and temples for purification, and enter the tea room, admiring scroll and flower before taking their seats. Then the host performs the charcoal arrangement procedure. Then a sweet is served. Then there’s a break. And only then is there actually, finally, tea.

It’ll be astonishing if we pull this off halfway gracefully.

Lunch was “hamburger steak” and spaghetti. Temae practice with Imagawa-sensei was embarrassing for all of the hangover-fogged men. Things that seemed easy yesterday we fumbled through today, and my knees weren’t amused. The general warming trend continued in spite of persistent rain, and my suit pants threatened to rip open at the crotch when I sat down without peeling them away from my sweaty legs. I managed to enjoy the aoyanagi sweets, round slices of dark red sweet bean paste wrapped in something pale green and fluffy, but otherwise I’d rather forget the afternoon.

And the evening, come to think of it. After supper, a kind of stewed vegetable mixture with a croquette on the side, Anita walked me through my first haigata. For bonryakudemae, the kettle sits on a small brazier called the binkake, supported by a three-pronged iron stand called, for some obscure reason, the “Five Virtues” (gotoku), the base of which is hidden beneath a layer of fine grey ash that must be coaxed into a specific shape before each use. (Hamana-sensei says that a proper ash formation helps draw air to keep the charcoal lit, but I suspect the procedure has more to do with attention to detail for its own sake; my chanoyu dictionary says that it “adds a nice visual ‘scene.’”) The ash-shape appropriate to the binkake consists of two parallel ridges with a gentle valley between them. Using the haisaji, you sculpt the front face of the first ridge, then cut its back face downward to make a sharp edge. Repeat to form the back ridge, then even out the center expanse, blending its edges into the slopes. The angles should be smooth and consistent, the ridges mirror images of each other, the surface of the ash as free from marks as possible. After a frustrating 45 minutes, I threw in the towel. My haigata was ugly, but it was my first attempt, and the previous night’s drinking had left me impatient and irritable.

I stomped home, wrote and did laundry, and fell asleep happily sober.