There is a certain moment

unannounced

Between afternoon peak

and distant twilight.

When pure white rays

decide to soften

redshift

into a new perspective

And through decay

unveil

magic, golden light

mono no aware - literally “the ahhness of things”

also

the bittersweet poignancy of impermanent life… (kind of)

I arrived in Tokyo around Halloween- that western folk tradition, transformed by popular culture and now cause for one of the most massive street parties across the world…in the heart of the far east, the Shibuya neighborhood. This was my welcome.

Ohayo gosaimisu.

Other than this peculiar holiday, my main intent behind this arrival date was to experience peak autumn foliage. (I see immediately how pretentious that sounded, but…well, buckle up)

Autumn, or fall, has always been my easy choice for favorite season. I think I am subconsciously drawn to the natural arc of the season, the way the pace seems to intensify and fade at the same time. The days can be perfectly balanced, laid out on a leaf canvas saturated with color and oxygen so clear it tastes like a spring. Community gatherings, events, sports, semesters of school, everything seems to build over the course of a number of weeks- and yet underneath it all is the acknowledgement that this won’t last long, that a quiet end is belied by the slight chill in the air when the sun retreats. If we peer at an entire year’s rotation around the sun through a fractal lens as a single day, autumn is that slippery period before sunset dubbed by photographers and artists as ‘Magic Hour’ for the perfect light conditions that typically illuminate each frame. A period both incredibly rich and far too brief.

Showing up in Japan was not, however, a concerted effort to indulge in ‘momiji’…more like, I woke up from a dream one morning and bought a flight to Japan. I didn’t even know what ‘momiji’ was, just a vague sense that this place had lessons to teach me and I was a man in need of lessons.

momiji - literally “red leaves” of the maple tree

also

sorta the lazy blanket term for all autumn celebration here.

I am drawn to the way it connects to the physical law of redshift- that as light travels further and further away, its spectral wavelengths stretch and slow towards the red end of the spectrum. This is how we measure distance in the universe, made possible by the fact that as the universe expands all light will continue to fade away.

Fade to black.

I won’t tell you my four weeks here were full of profound epiphanies and a deep dive into Japanese culture and tradition. First of all, four weeks. Secondly, I was quite poor at the time and really just living day to day, doing some work and exploring one sight or museum each trip out. My most commonly visited restaurant was…7-11 (seriously those rice balls). But among all of the long walks, conversations, and literature I managed to assimilate, I came upon a reflection or two that attempted to scratch the surface and shift my perspective, centered on the elusive appreciation of impermanence. Of the transience of all things. This is the quality my spirit drew out of my experience, right or wrong.

The typical image invoked by ‘mono no aware’ is the cherry blossom, that elegant symbol which blooms only once a year, and only for the length of a heartbeat. Melancholy permeates this principle, fatalism side by side with birth, but it is the very acceptance inherent that seems to unlock a fuller appreciation of each individual season, of each moment and element. The celebrations for winter, spring, summer, and autumn all gravitate towards appreciation of the present rather than anticipation of the future. As opposed to many traditions, well, everywhere else, the defining characteristic here is not excess. In America, our seasonal celebrations in fall were originally based on harvests and feasts and then transferred to whatever Halloween is and attempts at Thanksgiving to eat more food than our forefathers could have ever dreamed possible. In Kyoto, everyone lines up to walk single file through gardens and forests by day and lantern-lit night, in awe of the mere fact that these botanic necessities undergo a spectral transformation on their plunge to impending doom.

Mono no aware.

Bittersweet poignancy.

Contradiction illuminates the world.

I explored the country on a course charted mostly by the whims of the wind. At each stop, ‘mono no aware’ colored the plot. I went to Lake Kawaguchicko, renowned for its spectacular views of Mt. Fuji and maple corridors, and spent two drizzly days surrounded by perpetual clouds and shy leaves. The mountain never emerged, the sun slept in and the promised botanic fire show stayed at a low simmer.

Which was all, in its way, perfect.

.I made my way to Osaka in an attempt to see the national marching band championships; high school groups here are known the world over for their stunning proficiency, and I was beside myself at the serendipitous twist of fate that delivered me to the this rare experience. I walked up to the stadium on a pitch-perfect day in Osaka Castle Park and discovered, for the first time in my life, a sold-out marching band show. No seats left.

Full of disbelief, and drawing on a long history of, well, sneaking into places I shouldn’t, I probed the entire arena for a way in. Unfortunately, or luckily, I don’t exactly fit in as much out here as I do surrounded by tall white people in the states. Foiled before I even began. Frustration nearly crept in, but I looked out and realized that the reward for my own incompetence was going to be something unplanned and life-affirming. Here were some of the greatest student musicians in the world, warming up before a gorgeous backdrop all day long. Within minutes I stood agape as a group of instrumentalists all sing-conducted a chorale in a quality I would only describe as sublime. At the chord at 0:20, the tears flowed.

Another day I found myself at the Osaka Aquarium, eager to absorb all I could. I saw my first whale shark, got up and close and personal with seals, dolphins and penguins, and remarked obsessively on how the colors, textures and dynamics on display here could only be appreciated fully in artistic terms. The principles that govern how nature responds and evolves may be organic and chaotic, but the patterns which emerge astound and delight me to no end. The daoist and zen schools refer to this principle as ‘Li’, an “asymmetric, nonrepetitive and unregimented order seen in the patterns of moving water, the forms of trees and clouds, of frost crystals on the window or the scattering of pebbles on beach sand” (Alan Watts). For me on this day, it animated every particle in sight. I methodically went through the aquarium, a slow-moving log in a river of people with a blissful smile on his face; at the end, content, I noticed that the aquarium stayed open past sunset and changed the atmosphere. My feet simply carried me back up the entrance and through the entire thing again, this time bathed in a night palette of royal, mystic blues, purples and greens.

Alone, I plugged in the John Luther Adams symphonic tone poem ‘Become Ocean’ and circuited an aquatic cathedral with reverence.

Life is imbalance, a rebellion against order.

All matter travels the same path, in the end, to entropy; to balanced, disordered and lowest state of energy possible. Every second our cells respirate and rebel against this certain end; we consume energy and try to extend our ‘selves’ further against the flow of time.

Life is the fall.

The oldest wooden structures in the word are located in a unassuming, sleepy little town on the Kansai plane, Horyuji. They’ve been maintained for 1300 years, through untold natural disaster and human warfare, the rise and fall of empires and constant cultural evolution. These particles of wood have looked out on a world of fusion and fission and violent transformation from the same place, in the same state for century after century.

Even now, they look out on a modern world that thinks rapid change is new. By stroke of fate, these trees underwent a transformation 1300 years ago and simply stayed that way- only due to the relentless, respectful care of generations of Japanese men and women who felt it important to preserve against the forces of time. This is an ultimately doomed fight, as each and every one of them must know; yet they will spend a lifetime firmly pushing back against fate, and then pass this duty on to another.

Nearby lies the city of Nara, a first attempt at a permanent capital in that same time period. Before this planned community, the capital was simply moved every time an emperor died; that land was considered impure and unsuitable. Eventually, however, logic and efficiency won out and a beautiful city was constructed under the shadow of gentle mountains. Similarly old structures still stand there as well, blended thoughtfully with a contemporary urban center and large green spaces. The area has plenty of UNESCO World Heritage sights and museums and natural beauty, but it is the locals that draw in tourist hordes.

The local deer, that is.

Sika deer.

Legend has it, in ancient times the god Takemikazuchi-no-mikoto (baller) arrived on the scene riding a magnificent white deer atop a mountain; from that moment forward the population of deer was protected by penalty of death. After years of not living in fear of humans, the two species simply co-existed out in the open for the following centuries. Both roam about the plentiful parks, cool off in the shade and enjoy sunsets together on rolling hill. I don’t know if the deer took much to shinto or buddhism, but then again they probably know enlightenment better than most of us.

Now, of course, tourism has exploded. Massive groups troop through each day bearing biscuits and selfie machines to entice ever-fattening does and old bucks. Naturally, as more outside human beings pour in the level of behavior tends towards the disrespectful and greedy, which in turn produces accidents and injuries. Last year, for the first time, the local government began to cull some of the deer in the outer areas of the city.

Nothing lasts forever.

After four weeks, I don’t know that there is any thought or experience of this place stored in my memory that feels complete, full. Or should. Japan seems to exude a unique ability to filter outside inspiration and influence through its own character to create something new and infinitely refined. So many restaurants in the country are awarded the coveted Michelin star that even a broke backpacker like me was able to enjoy a culinary peak (Spicy Tantanmen Ramen at Nakiryu, $8. Order the extra noodles.) Not just japanese cuisine- every cuisine around the world is perfected here, prepared and proportioned flawlessly. The japanese language itself is a strange conjugation of ancient chinese characters with native creations. The ancient capitals I explored, Nara and Kyoto, were built to mimic Tang Dynasty design. Zen Buddhism, that distinctly Japanese contribution to a peaceful world? Actually Cha’an Buddhism from China, originally inspired by India. Yet Zen is still somehow its own, uniquely Japanese branch.

The greatest vending machines I’ve ever seen are in Japan. And the greatest convenience stores, the best train system, best toilet seats. It is as efficient, respectful, and culturally productive as any place in the world. And it also has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

I think there is something in that space that defines- or maybe embodies- mono no aware. An elusive balance most of us outsiders can’t quite comprehend. We get a glimpse, perhaps, a moment just before light vanishes. We may stand for as long as we want before a piece of art in front of us, study the influences on that artist and construct a narrative in our own heads; but what we take away is a unique, internal alchemy. Dissecting the physical world brings no more clarity than dissecting the plot attached to a piece of art; it is incomplete compared to the fullness of that internal alchemy. A part of it, yes, but incomplete. Try as I might, you can’t even quite put a word to it. The closest you can probably come is just to describe it as-

“the ahhness of things”

Let’s turn our attention finally to marching band.

Yes.

It begins sometime in the dead of winter with a seed of an idea in someone’s head. “What if we did, say, a show about a painting; we use set design, a couple of ‘characters’ and various musical moods to bring the story of the painting to life as we literally bring it together on the field.”

From that seed of an idea, a team of designers will then take over, typically spread out across a wide distance. They’ll communicate and coordinate as they write music, choreography and detailed staging information for each individual performer. An army of parent volunteers will mobilize to do the hard work of constructing materials needed for the show as well as taking care of the myriad tasks necessary to maintain a program of hundreds of students day after day. Artists come with the visual look of the show via fabric and equipment and costumes and send their designs off to production companies and pray that not much is lost between page and reality.

While this widespread network of tangentially connected people execute their discrete tasks, an absurdly small team of dedicated teachers initiate the process of training a large group of hormonal, dramatic, pungent, absolutely amazing teenagers to do ridiculous things. The skill sets needed for a competitive show are unique, highly disparate and rigorously acquired: they must learn how to play their individual instrument at a technically proficient level with a mature understanding of how to create music out of markings on a page, and then to do this as a large ensemble so seamlessly that each tone is perfectly blended across every instrument yet uniquely characteristic of that instrument, prioritized each step of the way so that the correct voices are heard in perfect arrangement. Every single second of the show must have this. Of course, this splendid music is not the only world we operate in; we must also move around a giant stage, a 100 yard football field, with particular style that is consistent across the entire ensemble, expressive of the music or concept yet regimented and absolutely adherent to maintenance of tempo, of form relationships with others and of facings so that the music is, you know, heard where it is needed to be heard. It takes thousands of repetitions to even begin to get comfortable learning the show -you try stepping 2-3 times every second, in a clearly evident style that is consistent as you change step size and direction of travel every few seconds, stopping and starting on a dime without losing balance or strength while you create/maintain numerous formal relationships with people around you and direct your performance up to an audience hundreds of yards away. Even without playing an instrument that’s just a series of increasingly silly demands.

Every skill is taught and then ingrained to body and mind with rep after rep, over hundreds of hours of training until the group can consistently move, play and dance together. For marching band students, it feels like an entire eon can pass in a season before school even starts. But once that day comes, the countdown accelerates. Sometime in September or October, after months of planning and work from hundreds of different people, the band will finally take the field before an attentive audience to put every element together in performance. It is a moment in which what we ask of the students goes from incredible to impossible: to take all of the training, all of the notes and moves and staging directions and illuminate this information with their own passion, emotional range and individual expression to create a living work of art in a 10 minute window…done without any mistakes, please.

After that brief high of performance, after all of the mental and physical exhortations of everyone involved, a couple of human beings in stiff clothes will quantify the magic of that convergence into a number on a piece of paper. 77.2, or 84.1, or some mostly random number with a decimal point. These judges will catch a couple things in the show, miss a lot, comprehend at varying levels and do their futile best to put aside subjectivity. This whole cycle will repeat typically a handful of times over September and October, in stadiums and arenas big and small before an attentive audience. And at the end, as the leaves outside complete their own life cycle and decorate the world with their death, there will come one final performance. A regional competition, or a state championship, or for some a national event. There will often be rounds, a preliminary or semifinal that could terminate the season before the glorified mountain peak. The task for these teenagers grows taller: can you take an entire season’s worth of lessons, of memories, of experiences too powerful for words and channel it into a controlled, technically proficient execution that communicates something beyond the individual.

With no promise of tomorrow, of another chance.

From there, the result is totally out of everyone’s hands. The arc of a season resembles an ancient greek drama; when the story reaches its climax, the hand of god -deus ex machina- reaches in and determines the outcome. It could be a malfunction of equipment, a pre-occupied judge, an ill-timed gust of wind. This year in California, an apocalyptic series of wildfires cancelled some state championships outright; with an event as massive and complex as this, that relies on specific venues there is no recourse when mother nature intervenes. There is one opportunity. A number of bands in the area were able to come together in a stirring exhibition (no scores or results), others had to watch from home as the climax of thousands of hours of work was snatched away before anyone knew it was gone.

Even in a perfect scenario, the result of this monumental undertaking and artistic expression is not a film or painting that will last as long as it is maintained, available to be revisited time and time again. It isn’t even a play or musical that will live on in future performances. Due to labyrinthine copyright law and a few pernicious companies, it is near impossible for any record to now remain of what it was we all did together.

Our work is a sandcastle, built grain by grain and completed just as the tide arrives to sweep it all away.

I’m not sure any of us in this insane activity truly understand the profound nature of this cycle and its lessons. The end is going to come for us all no matter how we live our life or how prepared we think we are. It will not arrive on a schedule, but in a fateful wave that scatters our particles back to the sea of entropy. Our life is but that brief period between heat and cold where leaves transform, where sunlight softens and magic is unveiled.

The end, therefore is not the goal. It is the process, not the solution. The individual grains of sand.

Thankfully, none of us marching band folk ever have the problem of investing so much that the end result hurts.

None of us.

Never.

Definitely not me.

Four days after the end of this competitive season, I flew to Japan.

I walk under golden bough

my journey near an end

for now

The day fades

a glancing angle stretches time

hours into seconds

minutes and moments

pulled to the brink of infinity

until seams split

golden liquid spills

magic

uncontained

and quickly faded

darkness the only destination