If I had time

If I had time before this deadline, I'd like to write about the smell of green tea roasting in Shibuya station. A spicy, powerful scent like autumn's burning leaves that always stops me in my tracks---that and the free cup of tea. Or the airy fresh-cut hay smell of the thin "igusa matto" (sheets woven from the same straw as tatami) that are sold in early summer to spread over old tatami to refresh and cool a muggy room with a meadow-like scent.

I would philosophize on the sandy blonds, strawberry blonds, auburn gold-streaked blonds, men and women, that have appeared all over Tokyo this past summer. Some sort of new, improved hair dye, I suppose. I would rhapsodize about the shimmering shades of gold, green, blue, and orange toenail polish that adorn the thin-strapped, pedicured feet of Shibuya and Omotesando. I would devote a paragraph or two to the glittering slogan "Mentor Aleatoric" boldly displayed on a tight T-shirt across the chest of a young lady seated on a train. And maybe another paragraph to the Jungian question of whether it was random chance to have noticed such a prominent slogan.

I would wistfully reflect on the straw hats that some elementary school children wear to school, along with those red or black leather book bags on their backs that are often bigger than the child herself.

I would talk about the wood cutter's shop in Ningyocho that provides white oak kindling from the far provinces for Tokyo's high-class Japanese restaurants that wouldn't dream of cooking rice in any other way than over an oak fire. Or report on the basket man who still weaves and lacquers light-weight bamboo baskets for storing kimonos---just as his family has done since Edo times. Or if I could find him at home in his ramshackle shed, I'd deliver an exclusive interview with the woodcarver and lacquer-maker of soup bowls and chopsticks in Tsukudajima and have him to explain how he gets such heft and balance into his slim Edo-style octagonal, lacquered chopsticks.

I'd write about the war-time memories of Mrs. Misawa of Kanda who everyday sits framed in the doorway of her picture frame shop on a small stool above the bomb shelter she hid in as the B-52s flew over the city. Her telephone number on her meishi, if read outloud, reads "minikui hodo yasashii"---the uglier you look, the kinder you are.

Or I would write about why the Yamabushi monks don't burn their feet in their fire-walking ritual when they step across glowing coals. I would describe the plangent "chin-chin" ring of the Arakawa line streetcar bell as it sounds each time the train leaves a station. I would ask some men who they think they're fooling with that hair product that sprays grainy black paint over their bald spots. I would produce 500 words on the life story of the owner of the Tokyo's smallest Indian restaurant in Tsukiji who hails from Pakistan and whose kitchen is no larger than a telephone booth and whose one table (outside) seats only six.

I would put down on paper the thoughts of the shopkeeper of the knife, saw and plumbing supply store nestled among the used bookstores in Jinbocho, who each autumn keeps bamboo cages of "suzumushi," bell crickets, down behind the counter, whose tiny chorus of carillon chimes echo and ping from oiled blades and saws.

And finally, if it were autumn as it happens to be now, I would write about the cool evening air perfumed with the scent of "ginmokusei," sweet olive, whose miniscule orange flowers along the stems are so fragrant, so evocative, they clear the head of any other thoughts, especially deadlines.

---mjk