Celebrating Our Strange and Wild Selves
Umbrellas abound in Japan. On hot days, women use them as shields against the fierce sun. On rainy days, umbrellas move like jellyfish along the busy streets. At museums and konbinis (convenience stores), there are often rows upon rows of stands where you can put your umbrella in a slot and get a little key. Or there are plastic sleeves, to put your umbrella in, so you don’t bring water inside and create a slippery mess.
This weekend, when our group took an excursion to a seaside town, I grabbed the umbrella my son and daughter-in-law had left behind and joined the rest of my group in the cold, unyielding rain.
Our umbrellas bumped into one another as we walked to the subway. We shook them off and tucked them under our arms as we rode out of Tokyo and into the countryside. When we arrived, out they popped again as we walked to a local temple, where we would be doing indigo dyeing and calligraphy.
One of my male students, who works out every day and who has had random strangers come up and poke his pecs, carried a flowery umbrella. He said it represented his granny self.
We laughed, and I told him Walt Whitman famously said we carry a multitude of selves, and good on him for honoring the elder inside.
Before long, our group was split into two, and I followed those who were trundling into a building to do calligraphy.
We put our umbrellas on the stone floor in the entryway and went into a room with a huge table, glasses of clear water, a brush, and a block of ink.
The master told us how to hold our brushes, how to dip the brushes into first water, then light ink, then medium, then dark. From there, he instructed us to make four sets of five lines. For each grouping of five, we were to dip our brushes only once.
He wanted us to experience the beautiful art of gradation—watching the lines become fainter and fainter as we went.
As soon as I started doing the lines, I was back in kindergarten. As a kid, I remember art class bringing me absolute joy. Oh, the act of creation! Is there anything better?
What a joy it was to play with water and ink, to follow the way of the brush across the page, making something out of nothing. Time did that wonderful slippery thing—it slithered away without any of us noticing.
At the same time, as art class often did when I was young, learning the art of calligraphy spawned surly resistance. Not only do I not like being told what to do, but I often can’t get my hands to do what I want them to—so when I learn a new art, I often feel as if I am getting set up to fail.
As everyone else dutifully began to make their sets of lines, I immediately started breaking the rules. I dipped my brush too often. Instead of making my lines march, I took one sheet of paper and drew a big plain circle that took up the whole page.
On another, I pressed the brush into the paper to create blobs. I flicked ink.
When the master walked by, I could see his eyes get big. “Oh!” he said and walked on.
When I was young, I tried to be the good girl. The one who followed the rules. There is still that self in me.
And another self, especially now, is hellbent on breaking the rules. There is an urgency in me to create my own idiosyncratic and unmistakable voice in whatever I do.
To take risks.
Because we only live once.
It was the thought I had as I waited at the airport for my son and daughter-in-law to arrive. As I stood there, a deluge hit me—of all that I have been through in the last few years. And that I am still here.
Still alive.
Walt was right. “I am large. I contain multitudes.”
So do my students.
So do you.
Now let’s get out there and celebrate all our strange and wild selves, even when it’s raining, because then we might have the chance to join a jellyfish parade where we can still live light and shine.