Cutting Back

by Leslie Buck

  Sitting on the Kyoto garden bench with my sketchbook and pencil, I considered my current to-do list. First, I needed to find someone to translate an introductory letter. But I wondered how to do this in a city where I carried my address on a folded piece of paper in my pocket for fear of not knowing how to find my way home. Second, I had to find a way to meet my landlord’s neighbor, the landscaper-monk. Despite the fact that I walked past his front door mornings and afternoons, I could only guess at his whereabouts. I felt I’d spent days doing many things and getting nothing done.

  From my bench I dutifully watched the Ginkakuji gardeners pruning the grove of pines. When I’d meet Kyoto locals, they’d ask me what I did. I’d place my hand on my chest, “Senteishi desu.” They’d tilt their heads, confused. Then I’d repeat myself with a hand pantomime of scissors opening and closing to emphasize my point. “Senteishi desu” (I am a tree pruner). Their eyes would widen. “Ah, so desu ka!” (Is that so!) they’d exclaim, trying to imagine a female senteishi among the Japanese men who had dominated their garden craft for centuries.

  I observed the senteishi patiently styling their trees, thinning thick branch clusters until the branches resembled a ballet dancer’s elegant outstretched hands. I had been warned that Japanese craftsmen rarely teach verbally, that I was expected to observe tasks being performed, then simply try to repeat what I’d seen when asked. Like a child learning to walk, the apprentice learns through trial and error. When the muscle learns something before the brain, the lesson penetrates the consciousness more deeply. The student is corrected, and rarely appreciated. He is more likely told, “Wrong, wrong, and wrong!” until he gets it right.

  I told myself I was almost a pruning student at the Silver Pavilion. Heck, if none of my potential contacts worked out, I might sit here every day until the gardeners gave in and let me work here with them. I’d become Leslie Buck, Kyoto garden stalker. The longer I persisted, the more seriously they’d take me. In other words, I’d begun to feel desperate.

  At one point, even though the pruners never acknowledged my presence, one gardener repositioned himself at an odd angle in a way that allowed me to observe his hands and technique more precisely. He’d never so much as glanced in my direction, but I felt he had moved so I could watch his progress more carefully. Did he do it on purpose? Did he see me watching him? I wondered. One thing I did not predict was that in Japan, the craftsmen would observe me more often than I watched them. At Ginkakuji, on a warm and humid September day, I believed I’d found my first Kyoto teacher.

  My teacher worked on his tree with serious concentration for nearly twenty minutes. He stood on the top rung of a twelve-foot ladder, pruning the highest, fifteen-foot branches. Twelve feet is a huge pine. The eight-foot ladder I used back in California had seemed quite tall a few weeks before. I watched my teacher stretch right and move left to reach every branch on the pine. Then he suddenly stopped and looked up. What next? I watched him in fascination as he grabbed a new tool out of a side pocket. He fiddled with it, put it next to his hat, and began talking to it. A cell phone! I giggled. Fifteen feet above the ancient garden, he continued to chat away. I’d discovered a modern pruning teacher in Kyoto, the summer before the turn of the century. I’d found him, not in an urgent search through the city streets, but by sitting with focus and watching.

  I’d ask myself several times each day, What am I doing here? And I tried not to think about failure. Simply visiting gardens for three months might be fun! But this idea got stuck in my throat. I’d close my eyes and breathe deeply to clear my anxious thoughts. I focused on all the people I knew back in the States who’d be thrilled to visit Japan, to watch small birds swoop over the dry sand garden, ignoring the one-way-only garden paths. They’d savor the meditative pruners, the wind rustling through late-summer broad leaves. Why couldn’t I?

  Stop thinking and look at what’s before you, I beseeched myself. A dry garden. I sketched the wavy lines of sand. Some people use the religious term Zen garden instead of dry garden. And yet dry gardens, and Japanese gardens in general, are not necessarily designed with religious intention. For instance, Japanese viewers might look at one of their gardens and think about a memory as a child near the ocean or forest, or they might be curious about the botany of the trees, or perhaps, indeed, they could have a religious thought. Japanese gardens allow our thoughts to meander rather than telling us what to think.

  As I began sketching again, the sand pattern transformed in my imagination from desert scene to a deep blue rippling ocean, with seagulls crying out overhead. Often, after I’ve been drawing for a while, colors and objects intensify, become crisper and more vibrant, and my sight becomes magnified. The most mundane scenes become stunning. Rather than reminding me of God, whom I do try to contact in my most desperate moments, the dry garden reminded me of a tide I’d seen going in and out on the first day I walked along the Point Reyes seashore with Taylor.

  I turned to the cone-shaped mound placed provocatively between the dry garden and the wooden pavilion. According to the English-language pamphlet, the monks who originally cared for the garden kept a pile of sand handy to spruce up the dry garden occasionally. Over time the pile became an object of study and beauty in itself. Generally I take garden pamphlets lightly, since they can overdirect the garden visitor’s thoughts. But I felt taken by this story. What do you think? I asked myself. I often talked to myself out loud in my California gardens, but I kept my thoughts internal in Kyoto. The motionless pile stared back at me. And I kept staring at it, looking at its outline, its simple lines, its uncomplicated existence. It was, after all, just a pile. I looked around at the rippling dry garden, the pruners, and back to the pile. My anxiety finally began to lift, and after two hours of sitting in one spot, I stood up to join the stream of garden visitors, each of whom reacted to the garden in their own way that day.

  I ran into David, my landlord, on the way home. “Want to join me for a walk?” he asked. “Sure!” I said, even though I felt guilty about putting off my to-do list. We walked down brick-paved city streets, along pedestrian paths, and past a local monastery with chanting monks. Turning into one side street, David exclaimed, “Hey, look, there’s my neighbor, the landscaper Sogyu!” Heading straight toward us was a thin Japanese man in a worn white T-shirt, jeans, and sandals. As we got closer, I realized how tall he stood; his hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and he sported a faint philosopher’s beard. He looks just like a Berkeley hippie, I thought to myself. I held an image of Japanese gardeners: functionally cropped hair and shirts with collars. Yet Sogyu looked unique, with kind, curious wrinkles that graced his eyes. He looked physically fit and healthy, with muscular arms, and was anywhere between thirty and fifty. I found him handsome. Most Japanese craftsmen glow with health and strength.

  “Ohayō gozaimasu!” (Good morning!) David called out with a smile. We both bowed toward Sogyu. David bowed slightly, with each arm hanging loose at his side, a man’s bow. I bowed more deeply, placing my right hand over my left, a woman’s greeting. Hierarchy existed everywhere in Kyoto. I wondered if I traveled back to the time of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, a favorite book of mine about love touched by wild nature, if I would find as much attention being paid to cultural formality as I found in Kyoto near the turn of the twenty-first century. Despite the fact that I’d done my best to learn about a continually evolving Japanese culture before my arrival, I often felt like I wore clunky garden shoes everywhere while attempting to be a ballerina.

  Just before I did my bow, I considered Sogyu’s place next to me in the hierarchy. He was a man, a teacher, and a potential boss, making him my senior in many ways. Most important, as I learned growing up in the American South, he was my elder. “Ohayō,” Sogyu responded. His bow played out as barely a dip of his head. This gesture gave me the impression that he considered himself above both David and me. The two men talked while I stood by, unable to understand any of their conversation. Sogyu rarely looked at me, even when my name pop
ped up. I felt invisible. Having followed the children’s section of Ms. magazine as a girl, I instinctively felt like waving, “Hello! I’m here, I’m alive!” Yet I would eventually discover that most Japanese craftsmen had quite a bit of confidence in me—more than I had in myself, in fact.

  After a few minutes, Sogyu turned, looked toward me, and asked in excellent English, “Would you like to see some of the gardens I’ve built on the hill above our neighborhood?” “Yes!” I said eagerly and succinctly, looking respectfully at his nose, his ear, chin— anywhere but his eyes—out of politeness. As my California mentor had taught me, unless I could think of a thoughtful question or statement, it was best to just “clam it” in Japan. “Thoughtful silence shows more maturity in Japan than bringing attention to yourself.” Besides, an uekiya, a real Kyoto garden craftsman, stood before me. My thoughts froze.

  David and Sogyu started up the hill. Oh, he means now! I pursued the two strong walkers. But I kept my distance, always staying a few feet behind the men, another attempt to submit to hierarchy. By this point I was feeling pretty good about my knowledge of how to be humble.

  We wound up the hill, passing a small shrine around which an elderly man circled, reciting chants. I often saw him early in the morning when I did my daily run. I considered him my jogging buddy of sorts. I hadn’t spotted him two mornings in a row and had worried, Is he okay? I felt relieved to see him there that afternoon, and I wondered what he prayed for so intently—loved ones, health, peace? I felt I was keeping an eye on him, but in fact I think he held me up those first few weeks in Kyoto.

  Sogyu talked as he walked farther up our neighborhood hill than I’d ever gone. He pointed to low grasses. “I just removed some of the summer flowers and put in these thick grasses that will eventually give this area more of a fall feeling.” Instead of changing annual flowers for color variation, Sogyu alternated the seasonal-looking plants. Each season he renovated a new area on the hill. We came upon a lovely wooden hutlike structure near the top. Sogyu explained, “We built this teahouse so people could relax while enjoying nature on the hill.” David reminded me that Sogyu used to live as a monk and that he specialized in the Urasenke school of tea, the building of tea gardens, until he left the monastery to work more closely with everyday people.

  “My company installed the gardens around this building,” Sogyu said as we walked inside. I’d thought the landscape was simply nature, untouched. The interior of the teahouse held rustic tables and chairs, potted plants, darkly glazed cups, and teapots of brownish clay. “How beautiful,” I said, stroking the top of a thick farm table in the middle of the room. “I made all the furniture,” Sogyu said matter-of-factly. Wow, was all I could think.

  Sogyu talked directly to me for the first time. “I visit a nursery tomorrow with my employees to shop for wild plants. Would you like to come?” All the sounds around me—grass swishing outside the door, birds twittering from trees, and a teahouse employee chatting to a customer—quieted in my mind when Sogyu uttered those words. Run around with garden craftsmen from Japan? Hell, yes! I wanted to scream, but I remained calm outwardly. I’d been warned to keep my excitable emotions in check in Japan. “That would be nice,” I said, trying to maintain a Prince Charles sort of smile—kind yet detached. I’d followed the Prince of Wales’s interest in California horticulture closely when he’d visited the organic farmlands in Point Reyes. Not only was he a strong advocate for organic agriculture, but he’d also expertly conversed with farmers about crop-growing methods. His devotion to plants, his desire for knowledge, and his calm, polite demeanor struck me as traits similar to those of a traditional Japanese craftsman. I sought to emulate his demeanor in Kyoto.

  Later that evening, David threw a party so he could introduce the new American to some of his friends and have an excuse to drink some of the California-crafted wines I’d carried with me to Japan. He opened half a dozen fifty-dollar bottles I’d bought at an esteemed Berkeley wine shop, Kermit Lynch. The smell of fermented grapes and good food reminded me of Berkeley and all the fantastic craftspeople I know there. I watched as David’s friends poured the beautiful violet liquid into oddly matched glasses and realized how all familiar tastes, sights, sounds, and smells had vanished since I’d arrived in Kyoto. People sat on David’s Western-style black leather couch and relaxed on the tatami floors. They feasted on Japanese beef grilled in a tiny hibachi in the backyard. I drank and laughed, while inwardly I preoccupied myself with my latest worries.

  Toward the end of the party, cleaning up, I spoke to a friendly woman, a Japanese mom named Minami. I took a chance and asked her, “Would you mind translating a letter for me to a company?” I’d decided to contact the unlikely Xerox garden company just in case things with Sogyu didn’t work out. My Canadian contact’s company, Uetoh Zoen, had already told me it didn’t have time to see me. She hesitated a few seconds, examining a glass for chips around its edges. I felt embarrassed asking her for a favor, having talked to her for only a few minutes. I remembered all the fuss my Japanese American friend had made over a thank-you note I’d written to his mother. He said letters in Japan had to be handwritten, using perfect grammar. Minami piled a collage of glasses on her tray. “Yes,” she said, smiling kindly at me. “I can translate your letter.” And we headed off to the kitchen together, carrying as many dishes as we could manage.

  Tying the Knot with the Kyoto Craftsmen

  I met Sogyu near dawn at his front door. Two of his loyal employees had already arrived. We began the day by visiting Japanese mountain plant nurseries and then working on a small pocket garden. The day ended when we loaded Sogyu’s handmade drum into his truck, a gray Toyota that looked identical to mine back home, except for the steering wheel that sat on the opposite side. In addition to being a gardener, carpenter, and former monk, Sogyu was an educator and musician.

  Early in the morning, in low light, I watched as Sogyu’s workers silently and speedily loaded their truck with landscaping materials from a small nursery Sogyu had constructed on our hill. He propagated plants typically found in the mountains of Japan, and then mixed this stock to create whimsical sanyosho, potted arrangements of wild mountain plants to sell in the teahouse. Then we drove to a commercial nursery that sold only herbaceous plants, tender plants that do not form woody stems. I’d never seen a nursery dedicated to the tiny plants in wild nature. Most Americans were interested in purchasing the biggest plants possible for their gardens. I was enthralled by herbaceous plants and felt particularly drawn to the feminine native plants of California, such as bleeding heart. Often forgotten in huge landscape projects, tender plants are crucial in nature-inspired gardens. If solid trees and shrubs form the structure, or treasure chest, of a native landscape, then soft herbaceous plants act as the jewels inside: small, colorful, delicate, and ephemeral. These plants may appear unassuming, but they draw a viewer intimately into the scene.

  Sogyu took us all out to lunch. His workers were as curious about me as I was about them. The first question was, “How did you come to run your own pruning business?” I told them that I’d studied horticulture, pruning, and native plants at night and on the weekend for years, and that I’d done many volunteer pruning projects my mentor had arranged. Advanced students mentored newer pruners, forming a sort of Japanese-style apprenticeship program. I said that I’d worked on weekends building a pruning business for four years, until I had enough business to quit my job as a general book conservator. I learned from Sogyu’s workers that kiku—to ask—also meant to listen, an important skill in any Japanese company.

  The restaurant’s Japanese chopsticks—polished, narrow, and pointed—were difficult to handle compared to the thick, coarse chopsticks I’d mastered in Chinese restaurants. I took pains to hold firm to more than a few grains of slippery rice between my chopsticks. If I couldn’t handle chopsticks, how could I expect them to believe I could handle pruning shears? I asked Sogyu’s employee Kan, who I’d found out was twenty-eight years old, “How did you become
a gardener?” He laughed, his smile radiating health like a shiny camellia leaf, as though this question might be harder than it looked. Speaking perfect English, Kan explained, “I lived as an exchange student in the Midwest, went to college, did a stint as a roofer for two years, discovered plants, and then joined Sogyu’s company in my midtwenties.” This differed considerably from what I learned was the traditional apprentice’s path, where garden training began at age fifteen. David told me that Sogyu employed workers of varying ages and unusual backgrounds. He said Sogyu’s workers often found him before he found them.

  I turned to another employee, a woman named Shigemi, who I felt most curious about. She looked younger than my thirty-five years and had a slim build, a delicate complexion, and straight black hair. I never expected to meet a Japanese craftswoman. I listened carefully while Shigemi told her story. “I worked with antiques before gardening, so I had to memorize much information. But I found that I loved nature and plants more than objects. So plants became the new things I collect.” Kan translated for her and added, “Shigemi is very good with plant nomenclature!” Speaking slowly, and choosing her words carefully, she added, “I’m most interested in mountain plants,” and Kan added, “She creates lovely arrangements.”

  The group talked in a playful, tumbling way. Kan revealed, “The Japanese characters for Shigemi’s name are special. Her name means ‘growing beauty’ and ‘tree shrub.’” Like a proud father, Sogyu added, “Very appropriate for a skillful gardener who is also beautiful.” Everyone burst out laughing over this comment, especially Shigemi. I wondered about Sogyu’s comment, which instinctively did not feel inappropriate but instead struck me as wise and supportive. I sometimes felt self-conscious about my girl-gardener’s dirt-stained outfit and clunky boots. Sogyu told me at the end of lunch on our way to his truck, “There are many gardeners in Kyoto, perhaps a thousand. But also, there are around thirty female gardeners in Kyoto.” Then he looked at me and added, “Maybe thirty-one.”