The Potter's Notebook by Frank Giovinazzi, a historical novel set in 17th century Japan, is available on the Amazon Kindle platform and in paperback.
Eight Hideaki stood facing a rock wall. He was sweating heavily; the rest of the way to the peak was all rock. His eyes followed the trail of natural and man-cut foot falls, around boulders, across stream slides to a peak that was out of sight, lost in the glare that shone down from above. The rocky ascension was as unremitting as his fatigue. He considered going back down to the bungalow, but it was a fleeting, embarrassing thought, the kind you wish you never had because it suggests you might not be what you think you are. As is the case with thoughts that shave so close to your self-concept, he brushed it aside and resolved to make it to the top. Tightening his backpack, and his stomach, which now seemed a little softer than his pride was comfortable with, he put his foot on the first step of the path. Off in the distance, he heard a bunch of kids laughing and playing. The voices were dense, even from a distance, making him think it was a schoolgroup. He looked up in the direction of the voices. They were approaching the peak from the other side of the mountain. He listened again to the sounds of voices that were obviously the product of eight or nine year olds, and he laughed along with them, and at how that age is so unpretentious, how they just do things like hike to the top of a mountain without thinking anything of it, or of themselves for doing it. This only made him more determined to keep climbing. One self-conscious fact that he was aware of, and glad for it, that when you are so close to your objective, you must, absolutely must press on. The pain of effort is temporary, and after it starts to ebb, even a matter of pride. The pain of regret sounds a hollow in your mind that can sometimes last for decades after an opportunity has been lost. This he knew, but not from personal experience. The old man had saved him from that fate. He knew it from having listened to the old man's story, who had not been saved from that reverberating well of despair. * * * They reached the top of the ancient stairs. In the early evening, at a time when the sun was still shining brightly elsewhere, the clearing was full of shadows and portent. In front of them was a pair of shrines, side by side. Each stood on its own broad, flat boulder. The twin boulders, stolid and cubic, were so alike they could have been born from the same molten forge. The shrines were made of thin slats of cedar, so old they were warped and corroded from exposure, with several holes and woolly clumps of mold along the sides. Their decay was so even they appeared to be biodegrading back into the elements. Inside each was a simple statue, time eased from displaying any distinctive feature or aura of invincibility. The old man stopped in front of the shrines and quietly bowed, then kneeled. He began conversing with the figures in a low voice, the way most supplicants do, but there was a familiarity about his tone that struck the boy as odd. Behind the amorphous shrines was a large rock wall. A single formation, reaching around the clearing in a semicircle, and going fifty meters overhead, subtly curving outward at the top, so that the effect was like being in an oversized shard of a broken bowl, open to the forest side. The sound of water dripping caught his attention. The water fell from a crack in the rock close to the high curved rim of the bowl. Dropping free-fall down the length of the wall to a flat stone anvil, fat and loud, a little over Hideaki's head. The drops were infrequent, one marking its arrival every few seconds. From there it went its way down a series of miniature steps and slides, over rust-red moss, spreading out horizontally so that a broad area was moist and dark grey-black. The water made its way down to the base where a natural runnel collected it into its circular cavity, leading it down around the contour of the bowl to eventually water the farmers' fields in the valleys below. To the right of the water scene, the rock was covered with a thick hide of green moss. Hanging like a drape, Hideaki touched it and was charmed to discover the whole piece lifted like a continuous weave spun off an organic loom. Overhead, ferns sprouted out from the green carpet, perpendicular to the rock face, arching their slender trunks toward the scarce light that penetrated the clearing. Higher still, adolescent trees struggled to grow from the moss where the rock was flat, offering them a firm beginning to an uncertain future. Hideaki stood back and admired the whole. It was the kind of scene that a thousand landscape painters and a thousand gardeners tried to recreate in their respective disciplines every day, and for a thousand years past. The boy, momentarily overwhelmed by the pure beauty of the scene, stepped back another pace and calmed himself. Appreciating each individual part, slowly, then the whole, he let the fall of the water lull him into a pleasant trance, all the while hoping he would remember this scene for years to come. "Very good. It is hard to calm oneself in the presence of perfection. That is the first step to cleansing oneself of impurities." Hideaki aware of the old man speaking, but didn't overreact, or spin around. He continued to absorb the scene with his whole mind. He followed the sound of the falling water with his mind until it drifted away. A few moments passed before he turned to see the old man still standing beside the time-dissolving shrines. Hideaki walked to his side. "Everyday, without effort, without thinking about what it is doing, or worrying what someone thinks of it, Nature creates this scene, and innumerable others besides." The old man smiled. "And keeps creating, even as we look upon it. That is another of the secrets - to always be working, so that you become like Nature herself, always creating, and eventually, melting into the background, where no one can see anything but your results." The clearing, with its chilly, musty air and dark atmosphere should have been less welcoming than it had become for Hideaki. He felt like he did in the cave, in a strange place, but strangely, very much at home. The natural landscape scene had a different look from five meters away - it actually looked like a painting, or a re-creation situated in the courtyard of a wealthy family. "The next step to cleansing oneself of impurities is to stop comparing this to that, thinking this looks like something else. Your mind gets caught up in relationships, hierarchies and either-ors, that you are removing yourself from where you actually are." The old man had taken the boy's hand in his. "That is a very wearisome method of traveling." Hideaki felt the unusual texture of the old man's hand. On first touch, they were as rough and scaly as they looked, hardened by years of labor and constant use. On the heel of that impression he discovered a centerpoint of tenderness, of soft purity that shocked the boy. As if the old man had protected that spot on his hand to preserve a contact point of immediacy not calloused by experience. A point of innocence. Hideaki thought none of this, it occurred to him as a feeling, a sensation as tactile and immediate as holding the old man's hand. "That's better. Still thinking a little too much." They laughed quietly as a bird took off from a branch with a brief winged effort, then swooped with the arched tuck of a swimmer, using its wings to crest another arc, then diving again, landing on a branch a few dozen steps below the clearing. "Very little effort, much beauty." The old man was looking at the mural again, staring into the scene rather than at it. The light of the smile flickered across his face, warming his weathered features, as if looking back on a distant memory. "Time for a very different type of traveling, good for me, and for you." Hideaki nodded. Leading him with his hand, the old man gestured for the boy to turn and face the faceless deities to whom the clearing was dedicated. The old man bowed, Hideaki in his turn did the same. "Come. We are going to visit some friends." The old man led the boy toward the rock face, a look of unsurpassed serenity on his face. "The bowl is a functional shape. It is used to contain things, but also to keep things separate." As they approached the charcoal grey section of the wall where the water was seeping, the old man put his free hand out, flat against the rough contour of the wet face. Drawing back his hand, dripping with water he wiped his face from his brow to his chin. His smile glistened. He put his hand back on the wall, pulling the boy with him. The two disappeared into the rock face. Read Chapter 9 of The Potter's Notebook.Frank Giovinazzi's Amazon Author Page FrankGiovinazzi.com |