Three Pieces for September
September does not suddenly become autumn simply because the calendar says so.
Still, the mornings and evenings grow cooler, the sound of insects begins to fill the familiar walk home, and little by little, the days become shorter.
In this way, summer gradually recedes, and the air begins to lose its humidity.
September is the brief interval between saying goodbye to summer at the ticket gate—as if to say, I have had quite enough upheaval for one season—and setting off to meet autumn: that moment spent waiting for the train.
The memories of summer are still too vivid to be called memories, while the promise of an easier season slowly draws near. The two mingle inside me, leaving my body feeling slightly weightless, like some vague and unanchored creature.
After staying a little late at work, I leave the office and read Kikotowa while waiting on the platform. It has been some time since I last opened it, but after a few pages, my memory of the story begins to return.
There is the self standing on the platform, and another self slipping into the world of the novel. Part of the reason I read fiction, I think, is to shift my mind away from work.
There are several scenes involving meals in the story. Even when the characters are eating the most ordinary food, it always sounds remarkably delicious, almost enviably so. Perhaps that is because writing possesses a structure of time.
A photograph can convey something all at once, in a single image. Written words cannot. We have to follow sentence after sentence, moving through a process and a changing point of view. And when writing, perhaps the novelist too spends time slowly observing things—or recalling them—before turning them into description.
Perhaps it is precisely because writing is so “slow,” because it allows time to be savored so extravagantly, that food in literature so often becomes something special.
If you are going to kill it, look it properly in the eye.
When buying ingredients, when cooking, even when cleaning up afterward, if I could really direct my attention toward what is in front of me—to what I am doing at that very moment—perhaps the time itself would become richer.
If I rush, or cook while half-watching a drama on my phone, stirring the present moment into a shapeless mess, then “this very moment” ends up like a feather pillow mauled by a cat, its stuffing scattered everywhere: ruined beyond recognition. I do not want to live surrounded by such battered scraps of time.
We move toward death day by day while killing off our own time. I cannot exactly say that I myself killed the things I buy at the supermarket, but I am the one who delivers the final blow to “those things.”
Perhaps a rich way of spending time means looking carefully into the eyes of each thing placed before me, one by one, before killing it. That, I think, is what it means to savor time as a luxury.
I should not have used tiredness or lack of time as an excuse to treat things carelessly—to kill them without even properly looking.
And then I find myself laughing at the fact that such a violent metaphor is the only one I can come up with. Well, never mind.
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When I reach my nearest station, I close the book and, as I pass through the ticket gate, vaguely begin listing the ingredients I plan to pick up at the supermarket on the way home.
A cool breeze is blowing. The sun has already fallen between the tightly packed buildings, and people’s faces, too, seem to dissolve into the city as they disappear into shadow.
When I work away from home, there is not much time left simply to be at home, doing things there. Do I remember the names of the things that have entered me? While they remain inside me, am I at least taking the time to taste them properly?
I like the home I live in now, and I want the time I spend there to be as luxurious as possible. By that I mean: I want to look properly at each thing, and to be present for it.
As the heat begins to ease, the body gradually regains a little room to breathe. And yet the fever left behind by the merciless summer sun, pouring straight down from overhead, still seems to linger somewhere throughout the body. Perhaps what the body wants now is simply a little quiet.
It is porcelain, but the glaze carries the faintest pale blue. Applied rather generously, it gives the surface a soft, hazy glow. This plate neither absorbs light too deeply nor throws it sharply back; instead, the light seems to hover and play across its surface. Its size and shape are just right for a small side dish, and I use it often in everyday life.
There are many kinds of beauty, and this is not the fierce, revelatory kind. It is not a beam of light falling vertically from heaven, but something gentler: light entering the dining table at a shallow angle.
That is why it never becomes tiring to use. On days when I want to move through life a little more softly, it feels particularly soothing.
At the same time, it has a firm presence and a quiet elegance of form. There is a small sense of uplift in using it, like having beside you a friend who wears simple clothes with effortless grace.
There are quite a few vessels by Masami Kawabata that I have grown especially fond of. They combine ease with refinement: they ask nothing of you, yet never feel casual in the wrong way. I find myself reaching for them again and again, and they have become some of the most frequently used pieces in my home.
Tableware shaped by soft lines seems to soothe the eyes as well, and I find myself especially drawn to it when the seasons are changing.
A line may be slightly uneven, or gently wavering. There is a looseness in such forms that feels very much in tune with the way we live now, and I find that deeply appealing.
I also like the simplicity of unglazed, high-fired ware. This bowl in particular has a smooth surface and a thin profile, making it well suited to salads—something bright like beetroot would look especially good in it—as well as fruit or a small side dish.
Though thin, it has been fired hard and dense, so there is no need to handle it too delicately in everyday use.
This shallow bowl has a certain sophistication to it, the sort of piece one could imagine appearing in a starred restaurant. There is the complex surface and warmth of the clay produced by an exceptionally long firing, and also something almost exotic about the fact that it is made from Mashiko clay yet left unglazed and fired as yakishime.
There is a small twist in that: Mashiko, but yakishime; and then an extraordinarily long firing lasting nearly a week. The resulting works are generally described as Nanban, and the name feels fitting. They seem somehow to have arrived from “somewhere far away.”
In terms of process, Shikamaru Takeshita’s vessels are profoundly local: he works in Mashiko, using clay from Mashiko. Yet the finished pieces feel almost stateless, carrying a distinctly urban atmosphere.
That “anonymity” gives them a certain independence. They do not lean on any obvious identity, and because of that they maintain a comfortable distance from me. They also have the ability to sharpen the atmosphere around them—to clear the mind in the way that washing your face with cold water does.
When I want to loosen both body and mind a little, drinking sake is also a good idea. Now that the air has begun to cool, a junmai sake with a rich sense of rice might be especially satisfying. When drinking alone, a katakuchi is easy and pleasant to use.
This hand-carved katakuchi, as the name suggests, is shaped by hollowing out a solid block of wood with chisels and other tools. The technique itself sounds rough and forceful, but this piece possesses both grace and a kind of charm that, to me at least, brings to mind a tropical fish.
There is the sharpness of the faceted form, the beauty of the chisel marks, and then its lightness. Lacquer is surprisingly durable. With use, it develops a good character, and even when damaged it can often be repaired or recoated. For that reason, I try to invent excuses to use lacquerware as often as I can.
Lacquer actually benefits from a moderate amount of humidity, so using it, washing it, and keeping it in regular circulation can help it last longer.
Even on evenings when I catch myself thinking, I really am drinking sake every night, the vessel gives me room to tell myself: no, no, this is good for the lacquer. And if something so lovely benefits from being used, there is hardly any reason to keep it stored away.
A katakuchi need not be used only for sake. It works just as well for pouring sauces over food, or as a vessel for cooling hot water. I own two or three favorite katakuchi myself. When friends come over for a drink, they often provide a starting point for conversation—not only about the artist, but about where the piece was made, its form, or, in the case of lacquer, the fact that its history in Japan reaches back to the Jomon period. From there, the conversation may unexpectedly wander somewhere else entirely. And there is also the pleasure of deciding, before anyone arrives, which one to use that day.
On days when I have managed to truly “look,” I feel happy, and fully alive. To be able to do so is itself a luxurious way of spending time, and good vessels help make that possible.
Fatigue slowly begins to loosen.
The novel I am close to finishing; the stories still waiting to be read; places I want to visit; vessels I want to keep close to everyday life; plans with friends; new clothes—and so on.
Before going to bed, I open the window and let the air in.
There is a dry coolness in the night breeze, tinged with something almost wistful.
It is too dark to see much beyond the window, but the season I have not seen for a year seems, unmistakably, to have come very close.
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Three Selections for September
Masami Kawabata — White Porcelain 4.5-sun Plate
Yukie Wakabayashi — Hand-Carved Katakuchi
Shikamaru Takeshita — Nanban Shallow Bowl
Words for This Month
Soft Lines
Katakuchi