I don’t know whether I just didn’t notice this before or whether it takes warm, wet weather to bring it out, but the 50 year-old Chadō Kaikan building where we hold our practice chaji smells like the cottage in Sawyer, Michigan where the Boydstons spent many happy, lazy, summer vacation days. No beach within walking distance here, though. And no laziness. Read the rest of this entry »
I meant to get up early, and get up early I did. I need exercise in a bad way, and the gym is priced out of reach for the moment; plus, walking has been recommended to me for my knees’ sake. The only thing about a good walk is that it takes time, which means, if I can manage to discipline myself, early to bed and early to rise from here on out. Read the rest of this entry »
If you see a bug flying slowly through the tea room that looks like it might be a mosquito except that it’s a little fat, you’re best off not swatting it when it lands on the tatami, because it probably is a mosquito, and it’s fat because it’s full of blood it sucked from where your cheek is itching, and you’ll have to try to get your own cheek-blood splatter off of the tatami. Read the rest of this entry »
Japan’s gods: they love tea. Today Oiemoto made koicha and usucha for Tenji Tenno, who built the first clocks in this country and got himself deified for the effort. (Or maybe for something else entirely; what do I look like? A historian?) Read the rest of this entry »