The Button Box

I entered the NPR 3 minute fiction competition, but with 3,800 entries, it's highly doubtful mine will be chosen. We were required to write a story in 600 words or less that used the common words fly, plant, button and trick. I thought I would put it on Big Harmony and see what you all think. Thanks for reading!


If I asked permission, on rainy days, I could play with it. Everything else in the tidy bedroom was off-limits; the dainty Victorian perfume bottles stained amber from scents long evaporated, the oversized clip-on earrings resting in crystal dishes (only gypsies get their ears pierced was her credo) that ladies of a certain age like to wear, the dresser drawers that were never left ajar, not even in haste.

From time to time, my feet would trick me and I would suddenly find myself in this religiously quiet space, its air as still and lifeless as a mid-afternoon sanctuary. I oftentimes stood by the bed, paralyzed with indecision about whether to quickly open the velvet-lined jewelry box, the nightstand drawer, the writing desk with all its private, mysterious compartments.

My hand on the slender handle of the mahogany dresser invariably paused…it seemed wiser to drift over to the drop-leaf table under the window to furtively look at pictures of family members, stoic-faced in the distant past, brightly smiling in the present. A mundane house plant, dutifully watered for decades, sprawled its tendrils among the photos.

Before the bully twins of guilt and fear ushered me out, I would head for the button box in the corner. It wasn’t really a box. It had no corners. Formerly a metal cookie tin with a snug lid, the round container held hundreds of spare buttons dating back to the first days of a marriage; a leather pea coat button emblazoned with an anchor, a clear, teardrop shaped jewel loosened from a party formal, the diminutive, pearl-toned button that once belonged on the neckline of a baby’s smocked dress, a nickel knob that fastened a teenager’s button-fly jeans.

In my own room, as rain lashed in spasms against the windows, I was allowed to leisurely inspect and sort each one. My whim decided how the piles would form; by shape, size, beauty, or some hidden character I recognized at that moment.

But on sunny days, in the silence of the violated room, I had to hurry and pry the fussily flowered cover off the box. Raking my fingers through the heavy depth of buttons, I felt a different kind of pleasure.

The sound of footsteps would slowly start at the bottom of the stairs. Before they could reach the top, I would have replaced the lid and slipped into my bedroom. I knew that no one would discover whether the buttons had been touched…a thought that always gave me great comfort but no satisfaction.

Bump of Chicken and Super Mattress Games

Tim and I enjoyed two amazing days in Kyoto last weekend for many reasons that you might easily imagine:

a) The sight of Mount Fuji in its winter kimono from the Shinkansen
b) The ancient temples and shrines in the snow
c) The delicious noodles and tofu (Kyoto is known for its creative use of soy beans)
d) The shocking lack of children whining (ours, in particular)

You can't walk 60 seconds in this town without encountering a sacred space...Kyoto has 17 World Heritage sites, 1600 Buddhist temples and 400 Shinto shrines as well as several castles and major gardens. It's truly the Rome of the Far East.

These visual delights are indeed mesmerizing in their own right, but holding equal rank are the more profane and less well-known pleasures of Japanese culture, namely Japanese Pop (J-Pop) names and hotel porn titles.

On the way back down from Kiyomizudera, a profound temple nestled in the hills surrounding the ancient capital, snakes a narrow street of souvenir shops and eateries. I was admiring the local pottery when I spied a bumper sticker of my favorite J-Pop band, BUMP OF CHICKEN, in a tiny music shop. Granted, I've never listened to their music, but how can you not be a fan of that name?

I must have picked up some good luck in the temple, because they also had one copy left of HIDE (pronounced heeday),currently touring with...SPREAD BEAVER.



Hide AND Spread Beaver on one stage? Wow. The awesomeness cannot be contained in two hands. It just can't.

I silently wondered all weekend if PETA continually picketed their concerts. When we got home, Claire questioned what Spread Beaver actually meant: Was it something you smeared on crackers or something more...well...? This, of course, brings me to the topic of porn movies in Japanese hotels.

Since we are not into the club/karaoke/"hostess" bar scene that dominates the local night-life, we opted to get some dessert after dinner and head back early to the hotel. We could have gone to the pool...but that cost $21 per person. (I am thinking of writing a small note to the hotel CEO that simply says, "REALLY?! Sincere regards, Nancy B." (I would frame the response.)

Unfortunately, the in-house movies cost the same as the pool. The NEW releases were Harry Potter and Spider Man 3. The free channels consisted of CNN and endless montages of "relaxing" underwater vistas. Okay, on to the Adult Fare...at least that might be worth 21 bucks because I was pretty sure we hadn't seen them yet.

Here were our choices, verbatim:

The Undergarment of Sister-in-Law

The Beautiful Hip of Neighbor

And my personal favorite, Super Mattress Games. (I think this might be a Nintendo game, too. Although a release date currently doesn't exist, I can't wait for Super Mattress X-Games for the Wii.) In the end, paralyzed with indecision, we ended up just watching Stripes on the computer until the battery died.

Lame, I know. Perhaps, if we could have found out if SPREAD BEAVER were on one of the soundtracks, our choice would have been easy. Perhaps.

Setsubun

Fed up with icy roads and the local idiots driving on them? Ready to stick your head in an oven if the kids have one more snow day? Perhaps you should consider moving to Japan because today's Setsubun celebration drove the last nail into Old Man Winter's frigid coffin. Tomorrow is offically the first day of spring.

Setsubun, February 3rd, marks the last day of the "old" year by ritualistically banishing winter's demons (Oni) while simultaneously welcoming the new, green shoots of good luck that appear in springtime. In ancient times, this occasion acted in the same manner as our New Year's Eve. Instead of blowing horns and setting off fireworks to scare off the bad spirits, the Japanese throw roasted soy beans at them.

Don't ask me why soy beans are frightening. I just don't know.

Although I blogged about this festival's significance last year (see the post, Demons Out...Luck In from last February), today I had the good fortune of seeing the bean throwing (Mamemaki) ritual acted out in a humble shrine by the sea in Hayama.

My friend Hiranosan, his wife Hirokosan and I zoomed into the sand parking lot about two minutes before the ceremony started. We threw our coins into the box in front of the shrine's entrance, pulled the thick rope to ring the bell (in case the gods were unaware of our presence), clapped our hands twice and said a small prayer. We took our shoes off, lined them up (toes pointing out, of course) and promptly proceeded to freeze our tootsies off in the open-aired sanctuary.

Except for the subzero temperature "inside", the ceremony reminded me of Ash Wednesday services in the Episcopal Church--a comforting blend of solemnity and community. A head priest and his assistant blessed the congregation and chanted mysterious words, as mothers with babies arrived late and out of breath, standing in the back in case a quick exit might be needed. We stood up, we sat down. We bowed our heads. An older gentleman carefully brought the offering, a small tree branch adorned with strips of Shinto paper, to the altar.

The toddlers became restless. Although I couldn't understand the words, I could "hear" their little voices pestering their mothers with questions and complaints: "Mama, why does that man have a funny hat?", "What is he saying?", and/or, perhaps, "I can't feel my flippin' feet." (I have a lot in common with Japanese babies.)

They settled down quickly as the priest blessed the beans and started to scatter them around the sanctuary, starting in the northwest corner--the most unlucky compass point since apparently the Oni like to roll in from that direction. I could hear the terrifying legumes ping off the straw tatami mats and under the sanctuary furniture. (I wondered if, like errant strands of Easter grass, the shrine keepers would still be finding them months later in unexpected places.)

The whole experience was over before I knew it. The head priest thanked his congregants for coming. Retired folk and young mothers filed out of the shrine, replacing their shoes and hats, stamping some life back into their frozen limbs and silently going back to whatever they were up to before this short break from mundane living.

Me, I dropped my friends off at their tennis club and went to fill the car...back to the "normal" life where gas costs a fortune and beans don't have the power to strike fear in the hearts of evil-doers.

But, as always, it was fun spending a little time with a community that I don't oftentimes understand but still love to pieces.

Sankien Gardens, The Sequel

The above pictures are of the exterior and interior of a Japanese farm house from the Gifu prefecture circa 1750. "An Important Cultural Property", this building is one of many in Sankien that had been carefully taken apart from another place in Japan and rebuilt in the gardens. The thatched roof, probably a foot and a half thick and covering a massive structure, completely amazed me. How long must have that taken to construct?

As we entered the "front door", we saw that the stable/barn connected openly to the living room and kitchen. When I brought this oddity up in class, my students explained that Japanese farmers do not see their animals as food but rather as one of the family workers. So, they are kept cozy and safe in the most important part of the house.

Inside, the polished plank floors were dark and cold...even farmers/villagers take off their shoes at the door. Two traditional charcoal fire pits (the blog's main picture) warmed the living area and the kitchen. The fragrant smoke drifted up the narrow and steep stairs to the second floor, creating a somewhat magical light. The smoke, I learned, helps keep the grass-thatched roof free of bacteria and mold.

The second floor, one large room and formerly the sleeping quarters, held a small, mildly interesting display of farming instruments and pottery in its center. By this time, my feet were going catatonic from the cold...as I hurriedly looked through the cultural items, I noticed that both sides of the room were slatted and open to the floor below.

Lily freaked out when she learned that these areas were used to raise silk worms, a lucrative commodity in Old World Japan. She was not impressed by how rich a farmer could get by raising these little critters. In a not so demure voice, she exclaimed in disgust, "Ewwwww! The silkworms could poop on their heads?!"

Instantly, I imagined Lily as a Japanese girl from yesteryear, wearing a wide-brimmed hat indoors and constantly in a state of the willies. What do you want to bet, 10 years from now, that she remembers that bit of trivia above all else when asked about her travels in Japan?

Sankien Gardens, Part One

I am very disappointed in myself. After almost three years of living in Japan, I had never visited one of its top gardens, Sankien, near Tokyo, a mere 30 minute drive from the base, until my friend Keikosan invited me to go last week.

We couldn't have custom ordered a more magnificent day--cold, clear, delft blue skies--a perfect day for skiing...or strolling around a quiet, still Japanese garden.

When I first arrived in Japan, my romantic, minds-eye vision of this country was shattered. Tokyo lies in the Kanto Plain, a wide, flat expanse of wall-to-wall humanity, packed into sturdy, earthquake-proof concrete blocks. Every bit of available space is used residentially or commerically. Green spaces suffer as a result.

Sankien is nestled between two, wooded hills. It tricks its visitors in a most kindly way, as a parent might carefully mislead a child about Santa Claus, into believing that this Old Japan still exists. Guests can walk a large expanse of trails which lead over the central pond via crimson bridges and into ancient houses, barns and pagoda. Plucked from their original resting places in Kyoto, they have been painstakingly reconstructed in the park for modern urbanites to delight in.

I thought that I might be disappointed by the lack of flowers. Sankien is renowned for its seasonal floral displays and not much is blooming this time of year. In less than a month, the plum blossoms will pop out and dazzle the crowds but right now the garden is resting.

Without the leaves, I found instead that I could really admire the park's bones. The branches, stark and bare, display their normally hidden inner character. You can see how the unnecessary twigs have been eliminated over time and how only the most promising limbs were patiently pruned in purposeful but unexpected directions...quite stunning in their own right.

I hope that I can enjoy as long a life as these trees. I wonder though, at its end, when all my green ornaments have fallen away, if I'll be fortunate to see the surprising ways my life has formed and the purpose inherent in it?