Scribbles in Ink

    Most Thursdays I unpack inkstone, sumi ink, a brush and washi (mulberry) paper on a school desk to prepare for shodo (Japanese calligraphy). Two Februarys ago la belle Mme G convinced me to join her in this frustrating and enlightening art. Unlike its Western counterpart, which evokes fountain pens and wedding invitations, this effort is a practice comparable to piano playing: The student learns the notes and attempts to put them together properly.

   "Chotto mijikai, be brave!" urged N-sensei, who has trained shodo artists for more than 30  years. An imposing woman with a German demeanor who favors yofuku (Western clothing), she lived abroad for many years as the wife of a JAL executive. She corrects my current project, the phrase momo no hana (peach blossom) to honor my daughter for Hina Matsuri (Girls Day). "How did you do that?" she pointed at a squiggly line that my brush produced. "That is pretty. The unplanned line is artistic."

    Mme G, impressively courageous, has been beavering away at a wall-sized series of kanji (Chinese characters) with a message about springtime. For two hours per session six students struggle to produce even one correct character in sumi (black ink) while N-sensei makes corrections in red ink. Four of us are mothers of  high school seniors. The challenge is to complete the one character with only one brushful of ink. "This is ichiban (your best)-- keep it," she sometimes says. Or she giggles: "Kawaii (cute) -- don't make such a round circle." Shodo is about a state of mind or hitsuzendo,  the Zen way of the brush. Yet it is a required course for elementary school children. N-sensei reads our moods or mu-shin by our results. "You are so free here,  you are thinking too much there," she says.

     Before class N-sensei joined us for lunch (a hamburger on half a bun). In her Marina Rinaldi suit, dark hair freshly permed by the Imperial Hotel beautician, she told us how her husband wrote his award winning novel. "He sat down at the desk every night after dinner and wrote," she recounted, calling him the Frederick Forsyth of Japan. "He wouldn't let me go to sleep until I read every word." She told us how she fell in love with a young male character and threatened divorce if anything happened to him. (Nothing did.)  A breakfast of pressed apple juice and homemade  yogurt has insured a healthy retirement.

     How surprising to find via email that The Library is facing competition from the Tokyo American Club's Women's Group: The week after John Wood's talk they have invited the author of Tokyo Vice, who will speak on organized crime. Will we draw the bigger crowd?