Cutting Back by Leslie Buck

Author:Leslie Buck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Timber Press
Published: 2017-09-17T04:00:00+00:00

Songs from the Emerald Opera

Ka-klunk, ka-klunk went my shoes down the gray stone steps as I sprinted with anticipation toward the city bus, carrying me back to Uetoh Zoen. My Kyoto holiday had passed by as quickly as it took to get to the bottom of the stairs. For an ever-so-brief week, I got to wake up to the glowing sun on my indigo futon cover instead of darkness. I could feel the warmth of Taylor’s cheek pressed against my shoulder as he slept, and witness brilliant, scarlet cherry leaves outside my window. One morning I saw a delicate bird staring at me from a silky smooth cherry branch; we looked at each other, both allowing ourselves a moment to relax. I savored Taylor’s sandy smell, his curly hair, even his coarse day-old stubble, all so different from the clean-shaven craftsmen.

Taylor had already returned to Berkeley, and I knew we’d probably hardly communicate again until I returned home in two months. Working at craftsman speed sapped all my energy. Taylor made me laugh so hard for a week with all his American antics, overslouching in his chair and pretending he would step on the tatami with his dirty boots. Yet I sensed, and wondered if I imagined, a distance between us. I felt tired a lot rather than excited to run around with him all over Kyoto, and Taylor seemed to walk slower than normal too. He seemed fine to anyone who didn’t know him well, but I noticed he rarely had any interest in deciding where to go or what to do together. By chance, I managed to secure a ticket so we could visit the very garden I worked in my first week back with the Uetoh craftsmen, one of the most spectacular estate gardens in Kyoto, Shugakuin Rikyu Imperial Villa. I’d felt so excited to take Taylor there to show him the beautiful estate. But he was so caught up in taking photos that he stepped off a path and destroyed some lovely moss on a rock, and then smashed the lower limb of an innocent azalea. I cringed, hoping our tour guide hadn’t seen, and then cringed for cringing. Taylor didn’t know how long it took for a garden to grow.

I hoped for a moment to have a quiet talk during our Kyoto visit week. I took him to my local homemade tofu stand where the lady smiled particularly sweetly at me. We visited a real pub from Ireland: Irish craftsmen-carpenters had been hired to transport the building, piece by piece, to Kyoto. We ate at a traditional Japanese restaurant where a female chef prepared homemade stock next to our table with leftover fish and vegetables on our plates. We snacked on feather-light pastries from the French bakeries; Japanese took their training in France seriously. Every few days we’d step into a steaming bathhouse, even though we had to separate here, to retreat into the male and female tub areas. Of course I had to give

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