Bonsai

 
This older man was mesmerized by the Bonsai trees which were all around us.  He seemed content, his eyes were closed and his presence seemed very far away.  It was as if he was having a communal conversation with the plants, silently.  By the calm he was emanating, it would appear all was super groovy in Plant Land. 

I, on the other hand, was not having a meditation fest.  I had just rushed on over to this art museum workshop on a complete whim.  One minute I was home doing nothing and the next I decided to be here at this Bonsai demonstration workshop.  My sudden love for spur of the moment was about as baffling as my sudden love for Bonsai trees.  I was just trying to go with it. I had no idea what I might find but for now I was just trying to find a seat.  By the time I finagled my way into the last seat available, and had annoyed just about everyone I crawled over getting there, I sat beside Mr. Zen.  It was then I noticed him but also realized I was trapped in the middle of a row with barely enough room to even take off my coat. This whimsical excursion seemed to be turning into an expedition of inept juggling.  The seats were uncomfortable, the place was noisy, I was squishing my coat under the chair, my large bag was at my feet and in everyone's way and I was now wondering if I had to pee. My serene, new chair neighbor was now fully present beside my uncomfortable, very annoying self. 

We were surrounded by Bonsai trees and I was beginning to wonder why. 

I closed my eyes to bring it all down ten notches in my head.  Then I took a deep breath. It was then I realized Mr. Older Man was actually now talking to me. For some ridiculous reason, I felt like I had known him for years as if we were picking up where we had just left off in a conversation.  This casual closeness to a stranger and the way our seats were arranged, somehow irrationally took me back to the city subways of Boston.  I was thinking about the acting teacher I had when I was young who had suggested we ride the subways to practice being different characters, fully with accents and mannerisms different from our own. I actually used to love doing this.  My current spur of the moment self thought I might try that all over again now with this man, but when he began to share more intimately, I stopped myself.  His eyes were kind and his story important to him, so I left the subway behind.

I learned that when he was young and in high school he loved the art of Bonsai trees, "but that was a very long time ago," he reminisced.  He went on and on about how it changed him, and kept him out of trouble.  He looked down when he shared that the world seemed so simple back then, and he looked away when he admitted  how baffled and full of regret he was for losing this from his life. This man seemed to be having revelations about his past relationship with Bonsai like it was a lover, and I was now sole witness to it all.  I didn’t have the heart to admit my actual reason for attending this workshop.  I mumbled something about having heard it advertised on Public Radio that morning but in reality, it was Mr. Miyagi.   How utterly embarrassing, I thought.  Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid inspired me about Bonsai Trees and this man beside me dedicated years to learning this craft all on his own and it changed him forever.  I’ll just stick with telling him my reason was on a whim, I thought.

He couldn't remember how or why he began.  I wondered if there was more meaning in the reason why he had stopped.  If we were real friends I would have asked.  He nodded his head slowly each time he remembered more details, and his eyes faintly twinkled as he started putting pieces together for himself out loud.  In the forty years that had passed, he had actually been to Japan for his job "so many times I stopped counting" but he still hadn’t connected himself back to the art of Bonsai.  He found that absolutely ridiculous, a complete and utter lost opportunity. We both laughed loudly, and nodded in complete agreement and I threw in a “that’s unbelievable!” for good measure.  That seemed the friendly thing to say.  This man and I were having a reflection conversation.  He talked, I echoed.  "I guess I am looking forward to re-learning what I once knew when I was young!"  “Yes, learning what we knew when we were young can be important,” I repeated.  Just as the class began this stranger friend was now telling me about all the supplies I would need, as well as some Japanese terms to remember. 

He shared that Bonsai simply means, "Tree in a box." 

As the teacher set up his table and told us he would need just a few more minutes to prepare, my Bonsai Buddy and I began to talk about the possible philosophy within Bonsai and the understanding of its unending lessons in patience, especially now that we are older.  "One tree, so many lessons."  Yes, I thought, far beyond what I seemed to take away from the Karate Kid.  "Wax on, Wax off" is so unfortunately seared into my brain.  So many lessons, literally at your fingertips.  I was now reflecting to myself.  One word guideposts for a lifetime:  Work, Caring, Determination, Fortitude, Balance, Harmony, Nurture, Stillness, Loss, Acceptance, Beauty and Peace.  Or at least that is what Mr. Miyagi seemed to be teaching us in his quiet, grieving state and Hollywood stereotype.  My new familiar friend and I were now both ready for the class to begin.

Ironically, our Bonsai teacher talked a lot.  He seemed a fast train on the wrong track.  He chatted non-stop. He clipped, wired and pruned his way on a small part of a pine tree toward a workshop deadline, while answering questions as he quickly worked on his creation.  It was like a pine tree poetry slam.  All that said, I really liked him.  He was informative, talented, very experienced with a dash of humor thrown in.  He was just in a gig that created a constant state of words located in what seemed to me to be a space designed for quiet.  This disconnect was reverberating loudly.  How wrong it was that I gave these artists a label and this art a typecast.  Damn Hollywood. 

At some point, everything around me started to take a new shape.  No one here looked the part, or was perfect and certainly not me.  Our teacher was saying something about having killed many a tree for years before learning this craft, and how his master teacher twenty years ago had been a farmer, who drank beers and smoked cigarettes while he did Bonsai in an old barn.  Mr. Miyagi was now defunct, and we were being opened up to new, more accepting Bonsai horizons.  Just then my workshop buddy leaned in and whispered, "Where did you first learn to love Japanese Bonsai?"  My silence jarred me.  I didn’t have the answer I thought I would. I turned to him, and said nothing for several beats. 

I was remembering all those Bonsai trees from my childhood. 

This man who loved to chat had no idea his query had catapulted me into time travel.  I blinked a lot, slowly and took another deep, cleansing breath.  "Home," I heard myself reply.  We held the sweet silence respectfully between us as this is what friends do.  "My home."  "Well, that's lovely," said this smiling, gentle man who innocently just gave me a gift. Why had I never put this together before?  I mustered a bit more, “My mom, she loved Japanese art.”

For reasons I will never know, as no one in my family was of Asian descent, my mother seemed to love the Japanese and Asian cultures.  As I sat in this Bonsai workshop I began to remember it all.  I hadn’t forgotten I just hadn’t put it together.  Perhaps the earlier subway ride had taken me back to my childhood home.  It was there we had living room tables and chairs of dark teak wood with beautiful in-laid Japanese designs.  Bonsai trees were in them all, they were everywhere in my home!  Our dining room table, buffet and china cabinet were also a Japanese style.  Our fancy dishes were square and had Asian floral and tree designs.  For twenty years a tall, white porcelain, delicate Japanese Geisha statue was in the middle of our coffee table surrounded by bamboo trays.  She was a goddess of breakable proportions for me as a young child, and so I never once dared to get too close. This specific décor list goes on and on, from room to room.  As a young child I lived surrounded by all these fanciful images from some place called Japan.  Back then this translated to me as being long ago and some place very far away.  It was where art was filled with red, black, white and quiet, peaceful beauty. 

In my childhood home on our living room mantle there were three figurines of people who were Asian posing in what seemed like life moments: A man fishing, an older woman feeding a baby with chopsticks, and a younger man balancing a yoke of wooden pails.  Above them was my mother’s pièce de résistance - an art print of a scene from the opera Madama Butterfly.  There we were in the middle of an Irish neighborhood on a small street overlooking Boston and my mother is filling our home like we lived in Kyoto.  To this day, I haven’t a clue what inspired her or what it all meant.  It just was.  My mother Claire was unique. Her décor was parallel to her personality, eclectic and artistic.   Our home also had Americana gilded eagles, a gold piano, Kennedy memorabilia, fake brick, wooden shutters and prints of Monet, Van Gogh, and Degas.  Clearly my home was a museum of a different kind. 

The afternoon sun was now streaming down fully from the glass ceiling above and warmly embracing us all as the workshop came to a close.  I could see now that the Bonsai Trees which were placed all around us in the room seemed still and powerfully peaceful. Their styles were exactly as our teacher had just taught us. Each was purposefully nurtured, balanced and patiently designed to take shape only after years of waiting.  My timeless friend and I were now only quiet.  The teacher dismissed the class and we rose slowly from our chairs.  We gathered our belongings and respectfully began to leave in completely different directions. On a whim I turned around to return to him and gently put my hand on his arm.  “Thank you."  He smiled peacefully.  "I really enjoyed sitting beside you today." 

Today I was with the Bonsai and the Bonsai was with me.