Cutting Back

by Leslie Buck

  I decided to say a prayer, a rare occurrence. I walked back to my little Toyota pickup and got an orange and a cookie from my lunch bag and placed the two items on the ground near the base of the pine. I felt I needed to make a symbolic sacrifice in exchange for the tree’s willingness to face my pruning shears. Taking a look around to make sure no one was watching, I kneeled before my offering, closed my eyes, and whispered, “Please protect me from screwing up this tree. Guide me in making the right decisions so that this pine might shine in the front yard for all future people driving by to appreciate.” I stood up to get my tools, and turning around I saw her. She had leaf-shaped deep brown eyes. Standing just eight feet away, a motionless gray deer stared at me intently. I’d never seen a six-foot-tall deer that close up, and I haven’t since. They roam the Berkeley Hills but take off skittishly if you get within thirty feet of them. Deer love to eat roses and other flowers, so not many Berkeley homeowners welcome them. But I admire them. They know how to survive on very little nutrition, moving from garden to garden to do so. A pruning friend commented later, “The deer probably just wanted your lunch.” But at that moment, I felt nature had given me a signal: “Go ahead, I’m looking out for you. I’m watching.” The big-eyed deer ran off. The pine’s crisp, geometric needle clusters stood out beautifully after having been pruned from a lump of green into a detailed form that looked like an open, older pine, just on a smaller scale. The client was well satisfied.

  I looked over at Nakaji’s tree with all its detailed styling, and then back to my own feeble attempts to open up the pads, pine branches that are distinct and thick. Either his tree was inherently more beautiful, or I was overdoing it. Sure enough, Bossman came over and looked at my tree from top to bottom, burst into laughter, and walked off. Silent, defeated, I tried reassuring myself, You’re not in Japan to be number one. You’re here to learn. This pep talk lasted about as long as it took to say the words. I’d been warned that in Japan no detailed corrections would be given. I’d have to keep trying new ways of doing a task till I got it right. Learning through trial and error is a lengthy process, compared to American-style instruction and critique. Some musicians call it “muscle memory”; I call it letting the lesson sink into your bones. Working on my poorly styled pine next to Nakaji, I felt keenly that I had let my American teachers down.

  I kept sneaking looks at Nakaji’s pine. He looked back at me several times and said in English, “Normal pine!” I repeated his words in my mind for encouragement: Just normal pine, Leslie! Normal to him, maybe. To me, incredible! I studied the pine he’d been working on. A hundred tiny connected branches on Nakaji’s thinned-out pine looked like a human body exposed, with veins smoothly flowing throughout. My branches looked decent from a distance, hopefully acceptable to the client, but up close, the connections looked like the erratic skid marks of a drunk driver. I closed my eyes before each new assignment. “Please let this pine turn out better than the last.” I prayed for a sign, but none arrived. Each time I finished one tree, decently enough but not great, Nakaji would point to the next. Pine after pine I pruned in the private Kyoto garden that day.

  At breaks I continued to study the men’s work and to take notes. After several days of watching me, Masahiro pulled out his own plant identification book and studied trees during what few precious minutes of break he had left after serving tea. I believe I may have inspired this break-time study hour. The men teased him, shouting out little comments as he flipped through the pages, searching for answers.

  I continued styling pines on and off during my apprenticeship with Uetoh, understanding I had much to learn about pine-styling techniques but also realizing that we had an excellent pruning program set up back home. Because Californians use so many different kinds of plants, we have the opportunity to learn how to prune plants from all over the world. Japanese tend to use almost exclusively native Japanese plants in the majority of their gardens. Therefore, they are masters at pruning Japanese pines. As I pruned in the Kyoto gardens with joy and fear, I sensed my California mentor watching me over my shoulder. “Don’t blow it,” he whispered.

  By lunch I felt tense from all the concentrated effort. I needed to relax, but one thing needed to be taken care of. So, after great resistance and inner debate, I hesitantly asked Nakaji, in as soft a voice as I could manage, and in expert Japanese, as this was an important sentence to me, “Otearai wa, doko desu ka, kudasai?” (Can I please use the restroom?) At the restaurant, the garden had a bathroom for outdoor workers around the back. I hadn’t thought of what might happen at a private home. In California, clients offer me the use of their indoor restrooms before I even bring it up. Half the day had passed in the small Kyoto garden, I’d had morning coffee and first break green tea, and I’d yet to see anyone enter the home. I saw no tall shrubs or fences for the men to hide behind. How do the craftsmen manage, I wondered. I’d held off, but now I was feeling some urgency.

  Nakaji grumbled and looked annoyed. He got up from his lunch with a begrudging shrug, walked heavily across the garden, and knocked gently on the client’s door. He talked at length to our client, who I assumed was the daughter of the grandmother, in what appeared from a distance to be dramatic, apologetic sentences with lots of hand movement and polite, submissive body language. They kept looking over at me, and then continuing their conversation in earnest. Several times I heard him use the Japanese phrase “Amerika-jin” (American person). I blushed but held firm. This was a bigger deal than I’d anticipated.

  Finally Nakaji turned and nodded. I had gained approval for my remarkable errand! I tried to hold my head high as I passed Nakaji, even though I couldn’t think what I’d do in the remaining weeks. Nearing the front door, I mentally rehearsed the three ways of apologizing I’d learned in my Japanese conversation class at Laney College in Oakland. One at a time, I said them to the sweet homeowner as I moved through her house. “Sumimasen” (sorry), I said while taking forever to remove my complicated cloth booties, which had at least fifteen clasps each, while sitting on the front doorstep. Of course no shoes were allowed in the house. I knew that. “Gomen-nasai” (pardon me), I said, walking through the small kitchen. I figured that even if the client questioned my ability to display a craftsman’s manly toughness, at least she’d consider me polite. “Shitsurei shimasu!” (excuse me, please) I called out rather ironically while making the home stretch past the living room, with the bathroom door just in sight.

  I was curious to see the home’s interior. Brief glances revealed that most rooms, except the kitchen, were covered with the traditional tatami flooring. Yet in the living room I spied a black leather couch and in the dining room a tall Western table and chairs. This client appeared to be as interested in Western design as Americans were in Japanese style. Once we reached the bathroom, our client, looking like a friendly American mom with a Mary Tyler Moore–style bobbed haircut, patiently demonstrated to me how to use the bathroom’s modern features.

  She pushed a myriad of light switches, which worked the sink, the toilet, and more. Then she showed me how to flush the high-tech Toto toilet, which used so many different buttons, it resembled a computer filled with water. I wished I had taken out my pad and taken notes. Last, she placed her hands under the faucet. Wow! A motion sensor–activated water faucet! Evidently I had stepped into a modern Japanese household. The switches blinked, the toilet beeped, seeming to say “Hello, Leslie” when I opened the lid. I felt a bit like Bambi popping my face out of the edge of the forest, only to discover a freeway of beeping horns and fast cars. I eyed the door nervously.

  After the hostess left, I sat down, a little sweatier than when I’d entered. Yes! Behold, a heated toilet seat! Where do I sign up? I sat there for a while, in an utter state of anxiety and comfort, and reviewed my situation. I could give up all liquid intake, or torture myself asking Nakaji if I could use the bathroom every afternoon.

  “You could act like the men and suck it up. Or you could be a woman and check out Japanese interior de
cor.” My dedicated side chimed in, “You’re not here to look at furniture. You’re here compliments of this generous company, so don’t bother them.” My sensitive side responded, “But it’s unhealthy not to drink all day. I’m already thirsty! I need green tea for energy.” “Quit being such a baby. Be like the men!” “I’m tired. You’re mean.”

  My inner debate finally ran out of steam and I turned my attention to what was in front of me. There was a cool little built-in bookshelf just across from the toilet. The homeowner had filled it with Japanese books, organized by color and size. I didn’t understand a single Japanese title. But there on the bottom shelf rested a lone book in English. It had a paper jacket around it, whereas the rest of the books were hardcover. I sighed, “Finally, something I can understand in Japan!” I read the title: Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff. Ha. I sat there a bit longer, my heartbeat normalizing as I giggled. I considered the message and decided that maybe it would be okay if I asked to use the bathroom once a day.

  For the late-afternoon break, gigantic slices of peeled sweet apples were handed out. No one grabbed, even though I felt tempted. Each person picked up one slice at a time and calmly took delicate bites. After seven hours of hard physical labor, I had to rein myself in. Slowly, Leslie, I commanded, resisting the urge to stuff the delightfully juicy slices into my mouth, one after another.

  When grandma came to retrieve the tray, I happened to be the only one in sight. So when I picked up the tray as I had earlier seen Masahiro do and handed it to her with a deep bow, repeating, as I had heard Masahiro say, “Sumimasen” in as gracious a manner as I could manage, grandma just stood there with her mouth open, staring at me without bowing, seemingly unable to respond. She must not have seen me earlier and did not know what to make of me. Or maybe elders didn’t have to respond! I bowed again, with a kind, respectful smile, and backed away a bit. Being from the South, it’s hard for me when people don’t chitchat, especially older folk, who are frequently talkative to anyone who will listen. Silence, where I’m from, is a sign of anger or arrogance.

  But she was my elder, and my mom had taught me to always respect one’s elders, to “be seen and not heard.” At least that part of my culture I think I have in common with Japan. Grandma never said a word to me, and I tried not to sweat it. I gave her one last bow and scampered off to join my crew. On our way home, Kei sped and slammed on the brakes, and Nakaji raised and lowered his voice. I noticed Masahiro had also found his clean seat belt. He’d buckled it securely.

  A Seasonal Garden Is About to Change

  My first week I saw more types of hashigo, ladders, than I’d ever imagined existed. We used handmade hashigo, aluminum hashigo, four- or fifteen-foot hashigo. Pine pruning required attention to detail, so the men needed to get up close to the branches. But given that bark shows off age and beauty, climbing on the trunks is discouraged, if not forbidden. Ladders allow for access to the pines without mishap. I watched as a four-legged ladder was transformed into a flat extension ladder with a few snaps. Uetoh Zoen made their own tripod ladders by hand. The tall poles were fashioned out of bamboo canes, and the horizontal rungs out of thick cut branches. These ladders looked rickety but held surprisingly firm. Sometimes we tied a thick length of bamboo into the crotches of two separate pine trees, making a walking bridge, or we’d lean extension ladders against the bamboo to reach a difficult spot. If I had to work on a part of the tree where there wasn’t a branch to walk on underneath, the men would make a walking branch with a ladder and poles. They could tie ladders into trees in seconds, using elegant twisting knots. My knots resembled huge lumpy things, requiring time and effort to dream up. Nakaji loved making fun of them.

  One day, Nakaji pointed toward a twenty-foot-high pine for me to work on—it was taller than a two-story house! My eyes must have widened, but I tried to recover with a confident glance over to the fifteen-foot extension ladder on the truck. Running to the car I thought, How am I going to carry that? I coached myself along the way. Well, I know you’ve never used an extension ladder before, or any ladder over eight feet tall, but between here and the tree you’d better figure it out! I grabbed the thick metal ladder, so heavy I could barely hold it, and ran, or rather hobbled, over to the pine. I calculated I’d need about six ropes, given the number of branches on the tree.

  I grabbed eight from the truck, to be safe, and was about to climb up when Nakaji came over, looked at my mass of ropes, and yelled, “Dame!” No one had ever brought up this word in Japanese language class. I guess they hadn’t expected us to work with Bossman. But I understood its meaning the first time I heard it. Depending on the tone, it meant “wrong,” “wrong,” or “wrong!” I tried to ask formally, “Where should I tie the ropes on the tree?” But in my effort to speak Japanese quickly, I left out the “where” and must have sputtered, “Should I use a rope?” Nakaji erupted into laughter. Yet he understood, for he pointed to the exact spots on the tree where I could tie the ladder. Mysteriously, two knots sufficed to secure the entire twenty-foot ladder.

  As I stood on hashigo for hours at a time my first week, I had to twist my body this way and that to prune the pines. The men endured regular discomfort in order to work as quickly as possible, allowing themselves few interruptions for adjusting their ladders.

  Overthinking each cut while pruning usually produces inferior results. Just as when one is learning a language, there is a point when one’s sentences flow better by not translating word for word and instead speaking as quickly as one can so the subconscious can join in. I couldn’t yet work as fast as the men, maintaining such detail, but I would try.

  The last day of our six-day workweek, I found myself in a stylish private home garden. Looking forward to my precious Sunday off, I pruned away in the middle of the garden on a blessedly short pine from a shrimpy four-foot ladder. Two L-shaped walls of the house framed two sides of the garden. A forty-five-degree fence framed in the other sides from the street. One wall of the house held a few windows. The second wall was closed up with beautiful sliding cedar shutters. A circular dry stream filled with gray river pebbles surrounded my pine, and a boulder-strewn dry waterfall rested off to the side. The landscaper had hidden neighboring homes with maples, camellias, nandina, and azaleas, so I felt completely surrounded by nature. The men pruned with vigor and in silence. I could hear only snipping shears, rustling plastic tarps, and energetic birds, observing us from the trees above.

  Then I became aware of a different noise: the wooden shutters behind me sliding open with a soft rumble. I looked over toward them, yet the shutters remained closed. I searched around to locate the sound, and the ladder I stood on began to move gently, then more decidedly, as though I were standing on a pine branch being shaken out to clean dead needles. “Earthquake! Duck and cover under a chair or table,” said a warning drilled into my memory from California earthquake-wary schools. Should I hide under my ladder? The shutters clacked forcefully against the house. For a surreal thirty seconds or so, the earth rippled beneath our feet. I looked toward the men for reassurance. They continued to prune. I wanted to run but just clutched the ladder tight, knowing there was no fighting Mother Earth’s power. Not one craftsman took his eyes off his tree as the ground shook. Just keep going, Leslie, I reassured myself. The movement stopped short, and I went back to work without a word—a complete victory for me. I practiced my impenetrable Japanese gardener façade, though I did raise my eyebrows a bit. I mean, no buildings fell, no one was hurt, so what was the big deal?

  Nakaji came over just before lunch to examine my pine. I had pruned the top with more detail than the lower branches because the top looked stronger and could take the stress of more cuts. The top now looked styled, and I could see rough bark through elegant branches. I’d left lower, weaker areas more full, and pulled fewer needles there. Hence, the lower areas looked fluffy and green. Tops are not always strong, or lower areas weak, but this particular imbalance often occurs. Overall, I thought I’d done a fairly good job, consideri
ng I’d removed fifty or so fresh pine shoots, and hundreds of needles, while maintaining a cohesive overall look. I awaited Bossman’s feedback.

  Nakaji lifted a few branches with his muscular brown hands to examine a few small branches deep inside the pine. I hadn’t missed them. He looked the tree up and down. He finally advised me, in English, “Do more pretty.” Sigh. I looked at the branches he had just pruned on a nearby tree, then mine, then his. It was a “which part of the picture looks different from the other” kind of situation. I finally reasoned that perhaps I wasn’t shaking out enough old brown needles, making my branch pads look messier. I had left maybe two to five brown needles out of fifty or so per pad. Nevertheless, as I paid attention to such minute details awhile longer, my tree looked better. I had to slow down quite a bit to make this adjustment. Kei, on the other hand, was pruning like a machine—half robot, half artist. His big party was set to occur that night, and he looked determined to finish the project on time, by six. In fact, the office secretaries, knowing he worked late, would arrive early at his house to prepare food and stay late to clean up. I found this kind of outside support for the hardworking craftsmen quite common. Gardening was one of the last Japanese traditional crafts requiring years of physical hardship. I think others understood this and supported the men (and one woman), allowing us to train and have a semblance of a social life.

  At lunchtime, Masahiro handed out steaming teacups in descending order of the hierarchy as fast as he could, while others ignored him. This was not a practice in humiliation; just what was expected of a beginning apprentice. The timing of our breaks remained steady, exactly at ten in the morning, at noon, and at three in the afternoon. All craftsmen took their breaks at the same time across Japan, including the carpenters who constructed buildings for the tea gardens, bamboo craftsmen who wove together our rakes, and even potters who molded the cups we drank from. The tea tray connected us all.