Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye: A Journey (67 page)

From a distance, the fair looked manageable—a long line of low, portable stalls filled with pots and cups. But as I climbed the gentle hill, I grew dizzy. I couldn’t stop staring at all the dishes for sale. There were
matcha
tea bowls, which I love to collect. I admired one bowl with fireflies, the bodies painted blue and green and the tails bright gold. The mouth of this cup was wide so the tea would cool quickly in the summer. My son had started spending evenings in our co-op garden in New York chasing after the dozens of fireflies that clustered on the lawn. I bought the bowl.

Avant-garde artists with jagged haircuts selling plates and cups with angular edges and spattered glazes proudly arranged their wares on tables constructed out of irregularly shaped slabs of wood. I hoped the wood was grateful to have been salvaged and wouldn’t resort to violently shrugging the porcelain wares off onto the sidewalk.

I finally stopped asking if anything had been made in China. “Not here,” everyone told me. Never in Ky
t
. I rounded the top of the fair and continued down the other side of the street. A man gave me a discount on a tea bowl with soybeans and demon faces; I would display it in February, to coincide with the lunar New Year. Then I found a
raku
bowl—a kind of earthenware that feels soft in the hands—with
koinobori
, now the symbol for Children’s Day, but once exclusively the traditional symbol of boys.

“Once you drink tea from a
raku
bowl,” my mother said, “you can’t ever drink from any other kind of bowl again.”

The shopkeeper agreed with her and, impressed by her connoisseurship, threw in a couple of hand-painted cups with dragonflies. “These are the perfect weight,” said the man. “For beer, tea, or water.” He was right. Later in the hotel room, I stopped using the cold, white porcelain cups accompanying our complimentary coffee, in favor of the little dragonfly cups.

By the time I arrived at Rokuharamitsuji, my shopping bags were heavy. My mind was scattered. I was thinking about how I would change the decorations on the mantel at home each month. It would still be summer when I got home. The firefly bowl could go next to the watermelon bowl. Soon it would be fall, and I’d put out the chrysanthemum bowl next to the crimson maple-leaf bowl.

It was dark, and Rokuharamitsuji was illuminated by lanterns. While stadium light aims to re-create the freshness and alertness of daylight, lantern light lives symbiotically with the dark. You step into its tent, aware of the night outside, aware that you are sharing a little island of sight with everyone else who is with you. Once upon a time, people walked from island of light to island of light. Once upon a time, people carried light with them. They suspended lanterns on bamboo poles, not unlike the way they carted water from a well. To be in the lamplight always fills me with nostalgia and makes me want to linger where the world feels simpler and therefore safer, though I know this is an illusion.

Rokuharamitsuji was founded in the tenth century and sits in the eastern side of Ky
t
. The long name requires an explanation.
Roku
means “six” in Japanese, and in traditional Buddhism it is believed that there are six realms of existence: hell, hungry ghosts, animals, titans, humans, and gods. Beyond these realms, there is enlightenment, which frees a soul from constantly being reborn; a god, after all, might end up being reborn as a praying mantis if he is not careful. Rokuharamitsuji’s long name is intended to remind
all beings to practice perfection in whatever realm they inhabit, because that is the best way to become enlightened.

At one point, there was a large cemetery near Rokuharamitsuji that took up much of the eastern hillside of Ky
t
city. People who were too poor to bury their loved ones dumped corpses at the entrance to this cemetery, which was often nicknamed “Rokudo no tsuji,” or “the Crossroads of the Six Realms.” In the people’s imagination, this crossroads became a sacred space between this world and the next. Rokuharamitsuji, and the five other temples situated near this cemetery, thus took on the special role of acting as way stations for the busy traffic traversing the six realms. During Obon, pilgrims walked the road through this cemetery and visited the six temples; the route was considered a symbolic tour through the underworlds of the realms.

Today, there is little trace of the vast old cemetery, and most of Rokuharamitsuji’s buildings were restored in 1969 and have a modern feel. Fortunately, old traditions are still remembered and practiced within the temple, and during the period surrounding Obon, crowds of people turn to Rokuharamitsuji to bring home their ancestors and to walk the old pilgrimage route. My
omukae
began when I paid a man sitting in a tent on the Rokuharamitsuji grounds to write down the names of my grandparents and my father on thin strips of paper. I took the strips of paper into the temple and then sat down to pray.

Around me, a few people were already seated on the tatami floor, their heads bent. I copied their poses, and for a while my mind was blank. I have never known what to do when I am supposed to pray. Finally, I asked the people I missed—the people I secretly suspected loved me most in life—to help me. I was exhausted from waking up every morning more sad than happy. I needed their help to right the imbalance.

Rokuharamitsuji is a Shingon temple, and along with an assortment of gold cups, leaves, and gold chandeliers, it houses numerous
beautiful statues. My attention was immediately drawn to a growling old Fud
. I thought about how my father would have tried to copy the expression to make me laugh.

It was hot outside, and it had become even hotter inside the temple, now crowded with dozens of people sitting on the floor. At last the priests came out and lit incense and candles, which made the temple absolutely sweltering. The priests chanted sutras, and I furiously fanned my handmade Ky
t
-style fan.