A Tale for the Time Being (27 page)

Jiko also says that to do zazen is to enter time completely.

I really like that.

Here’s what old Zen Master D
ō
gen has to say about it:

Think not-thinking.

How do you think not-thinking?

Nonthinking. This is the essential art of zazen.

I guess it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense unless you just sit down and do it. I’m not saying you have to. I’m just telling you what I think.

1.

One. Two. Three. Whenever Ruth tried to sit still and count her breaths, her mind constricted like a slow, dull fist around her cosmic egg and she nodded off.

Over and over again.

How could this be her mind awakening? It felt like boredom. It felt like what happened when the power went out. But Nao was right. It also felt like home, and she wasn’t sure she liked
it.

2.

Over and over she tried. When her head fell forward, she jerked awake and started counting, but over and over she nodded off again. In the interstices between sleeping and
waking, she floated in a darkened liminal state that was not quite a dream, but was perpetually on the edge of becoming one. There she hung, submerged and tumbling slowly, like a particle of
flotsam just below the crest of a wave that was always just about to break.

3.

What if I travel so far away in my dream that I can’t get back in time to wake up?

Ruth had asked her father this once, when she was little. He used to tuck her into bed, and kiss her on the forehead and bid her sweet dreams, but the exhortation always made her anxious.
What if my dream isn’t sweet? What if it’s horrible?

“Remind yourself it’s just a dream,” he said. “And then wake up.”

But what if I can’t get back in time?

“Then I’ll come and get you,” he said, turning out the light.

4.

“Maybe you’re trying too hard,” Oliver suggested. “Maybe you should take a break.”

He was standing in the doorway to her office, watching her adjust the cushion on the floor.

“I can’t take a break,” she said, sitting back down and crossing her legs. “My whole life is a break. I really need to do this.”

She shifted her weight forward and arched her spine. Maybe she was too comfortable. Maybe she should be more uncomfortable. She reached around and gave the cushion a punch and then tried it
again.

“Maybe you’re just tired,” Oliver said. “Maybe you should stop trying to meditate and take a nap.”

“My whole life is a nap. I need to wake up.” She closed her eyes and exhaled. Immediately she felt the dull shimmer of fatigue, pressing from somewhere deep inside her, dragging her
down. She shook herself and opened her eyes again.

“Listen,” she said. “You’re the one who said the universe provides. Well, the universe provided Nao, and she says this is the way to wake up. Maybe she’s right.
Anyway, I want to try. I need something. I need a supapawa.” She closed her eyes again. Her mind was her power. She wanted her mind back.

“Okay,” he said. “Do you want to go get some clams and oysters after you finish? The rain’s stopped and it’s a nice low tide.”

“Sure,” she said, keeping her eyes closed.

The cat, who had been sharpening his claws on the doorjamb, now squeezed between Oliver’s legs and went straight for her, thrusting his head into her mudra.

“Pest,” she said, breaking the circle of her cosmic egg to scratch his ear. “Oliver, will you please come get your cat and close the door on your way out.”

“That’s his superpower,” Oliver said, as he scooped him up. “He knows how to be annoying.”

He paused at the doorway again, still holding the cat. “We should go get clams soon, though, while the tide’s still low. How long are you going to sit there for? Do you want me to
come wake you up?”

5.

The clam garden they liked best was a secret one that Muriel had shown them. Islanders kept a lot of secrets: secret clam gardens and oyster beds, secret pine mushroom and
chanterelle patches, secret underwater rocks where sea urchins grew, secret marijuana grow-ops, secret telephone lists for salmon and halibut, meat and cheese and unpasteurized dairy. In recent
years, the three small grocery stores had upgraded their stock and you could now buy most foods, but in the old days, if you were a newcomer, you could starve if an old-timer didn’t take pity
on you and let you in on some of the secrets.

The clam garden was on the western edge of the island, facing the deep cold waters of the passage. The oysters there were small and sweet, and the clams were bountiful. Muriel said that the
garden was ancient and had been cultivated by the Salish for generations, but now few people harvested there, which was a pity because the gardens benefited by frequent harvesting. Still, every
forkful of sand turned up a dozen or more fat clams, and in about twenty minutes they had their combined daily limit of a hundred and fifty littlenecks and thirty oysters.

They sat on a smooth rock just above the sandy flat, looking west across the ocean toward the jagged silhouette of the mountains. The dark indigo sky was streaked with pale clouds, reflecting
the dying glow of the day. Overhead, the first stars dotted the sky. Small waves licked the rock at their feet.

Oliver took a can of beer out of his coat pocket, popped it open, and handed it to Ruth. He took out an oyster knife and a lime. His knife flashed, and the top half of the oyster shell arced and
sank in the dark water. He held out the bottom half to her. The flayed mollusk glistened on the pearly shell; plump grey meat, dark frill. She thought she saw it flinch when he sprayed it with
lime.

She accepted the offering, tipping the shell to her lips and letting the oyster slip into her mouth. It was cold and fresh-tasting. He pulled another from the bucket, shucked it, and sucked it
back.

“Ahhh,” he sighed. “
Crassostrea gigas
. The essence of the sea.” He washed it down with a swig of beer.

He looked so happy. And healthy, too. He’d lost weight when he was sick. It was good to see him looking well again. She thought about what the oysterman, Blake, had said about radiation,
what Muriel had said about drift.

“Some of the oyster guys are worried about nuclear contamination,” she said. “From Fukushima. What do you think?”

“The Pacific is a pretty big place,” he said. “You want another?

She shook her head.

“It’s kind of ironic,” Oliver said, shucking one for himself. “This Pacific oyster isn’t native.”

She knew this. Everybody knew this. It was impossible to live on the island and not know this. Oyster farming was the closest thing they had to an industry, now that the salmon run was depleted
and the big trees had been cut.

“They were introduced in 1912 or ’13,” he said, “but didn’t really acclimate until the thirties. But once they did, they took over. Crowded out the smaller native
species.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

“You used to be able to walk barefoot on the beaches. That’s what the old-timers say.”

She’d heard this, too. Now the local beaches were covered with razor-sharp oyster shells, so it was hard to imagine walking barefoot. “And why is this ironic?”

“Well, maybe
ironic
is the wrong word. It’s just that
Crassostrea gigas
originally came from Japan. From Miyagi, actually. In fact, the other name for them is the
Miyagi oyster. Isn’t that where your nun is from?”

“Yes,” she said, feeling the wide Pacific Ocean suddenly shrink just a little. “I didn’t know that.”

The cold from the rock had seeped through the seat of her jeans. She stood and jumped up and down to get warm. It was still too cold to be sitting on rocks, drinking beer, but she didn’t
mind. The sea air was fresh and felt good in her lungs, dissolving the sleepiness and the murky claustrophobic feeling that overwhelmed her after a day in front of the computer. Here, she felt
awake again.

“Do you know how lucky we are?” Oliver was saying. “To live in a place where the water is still clean? Where we can still eat the shellfish?”

She thought about the Salish who used to tend these gardens. She wondered when the last oyster was harvested in the beds around Manhattan. She thought about the leak in Fukushima. She thought
about old Jiko’s temple, clinging to the side of the mountain in Miyagi. Or was it?

“I wonder how much longer we have . . . ,” she said.

“Who knows?” he said. “Better enjoy it while you can.” He held out an oyster. His fingers were wet and raw. “You want another?”

“Okay.” The sharp-edged shell was rough against her lips, the cold flesh soft on her tongue. She swallowed and savored the brine. The tide was rising around their rock, lapping at
her toes. “I’m cold,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

1.

Have you ever tried to bully a wave? Punch it? Kick it? Pinch it? Hit it? Beat it to death with a stick?

Stupid.

After old Jiko found my scars, she took me on an errand into town. On the way back, she wanted to stop and buy some rice balls and soft drinks and some chocolate treats. She had this idea that
we could take the bus to the seaside and have a picnic there. I didn’t particularly care, but she seemed to think it would be a big treat for me to eat store-bought food and play by the
ocean, so I was like, whatever, you know, willing to go along because it’s hard to disappoint someone who’s a hundred and four years old.

Because of her cataracts, Jiko can’t really walk very well, and she always carries a stick, but what she really likes is when you hold hands with her. I think holding hands makes her feel
more confident, and so I got into the habit of holding her hand when I was next to her, and to tell you the truth, I liked it, too. I liked the feeling of her thin little fingers in mine. I liked
being the strong one, and keeping her tiny body close to me. It made me feel useful. When I wasn’t there, she used her stick. I liked feeling more useful than a stick.

Before getting on the bus to the seaside, Jiko wanted to stop at the Family Mart in town to buy our picnic, but there happened to be a gang of yanki
¹¹⁴
girls hanging out in the parking lot in front, so I lied and said I wasn’t hungry. They were speed-tribe biker chicks, with bleached orange and yellow shaggy hair and
baggy construction-worker pants and big flapping lab coats that looked like the kind that doctors and scientists wear, only they weren’t white. They were neon bright and graffitied all over
with giant black kanji.

The girls were squatting on the pavement by the door, chewing gum and smoking. A couple of them were leaning on wooden swords, the kind you use for kendo, and I was like, No way, Grandma,
I’m really not hungry, but old Jiko had her heart set on making a picnic for me, so what could I do? I held her little hand real tight, and when we got near the girls, one of them spat and it
landed at our feet, and then they started to say stuff. It was nothing I hadn’t heard at school before, but it shocked me because of Jiko being so old, and how can you say rude stuff about
manko
¹¹⁵
and chinchin
¹¹⁶
to an old lady who is a nun? It took us forever to get past them because
Jiko walks so slow and they were kind of blocking our way. They kept on shouting out and spitting, and I could feel my heart racing and my face growing hot, even if old Jiko didn’t bat an
eyelid.

Finally we made it into the Family Mart. The whole time we were looking for rice balls and drinks and deciding whether to buy chocolate or sweet bean cakes or both for dessert, I kept looking
through the window at the girls squatting outside the store. I knew that when we left they would say more stuff to us. Maybe they would throw things at us or trip us. Maybe they would follow us to
the beach and get their boyfriends to rape us and beat us and throw our dead bodies into the ocean, or maybe they would just do the business themselves with their wooden swords. I’d gotten
plenty of practice at school imagining this kind of thing happening to my own body so it didn’t bother me that much, but the idea of someone hurting my old Jiko was brand new to my mind, and
it made me feel like throwing up.

But old Jiko wasn’t paying any attention. She was concentrating on selecting the flavors of our rice balls, and eventually she decided on sour plums, flavored seaweed, and spicy cod roe.
She wanted me to choose a chocolate treat, either Pocky or Melty Kisses or both, but how could I focus on something so unimportant? I had to protect us from our enemies outside the door, even if
she was too old and blind to comprehend the danger we were in, and I was trying to calculate my chances of fighting off a dozen yanki bitches with serious sticks, when all I had was my pathetic
little
supapawa!

It took forever for Jiko to pay the cashier—you know how it is with old people and their coin purses—but I didn’t mind, or offer to help. I was kind of hoping that maybe she
would take all day, and by the time we’d finished, the gang would have gone, but no such luck. They were still there, squatting on the pavement, and the minute we walked out of the store,
they kind of locked on to us, spitting and sizing us up. I tried to hurry Jiko past them, but you know old Jiko. She always takes her time.

The girls started calling out, and as we got closer their cries grew louder and more screechy, and a couple of the squatting ones got to their feet. I moved in front, but when we were even with
them, suddenly old Jiko stopped. She turned to face them, peering as if she was noticing them for the first time, and then she tugged on my hand and started shuffling in their direction.

I held back, whispering, “Dame da yo, Obaachama! Iko yo!”
¹¹⁷
but she didn’t listen. She went up and stood right in front of them
and gave them a long look, which is how she looks at everything. Long and steady, probably on account of the time it takes for an image to form through the milky lenses of her cataracts. The girls,
in their neon-colored pants and blue and orange and red mechanical coats with the big black kanji, must just have been a confusion of lines and bright colors to her eyes.