Building Blocks
Kashii was very understanding of me as I was of her, she did watch me with a little bit of an uneasy eye for about a week. It did not take her long to see that I meant waht I said, and stood by my word when given to a person. She was very happy to see another person in the house so willing ot help and be helped, it was always her way to do that for people. If you ever needed help the person that you would want around would have been Kashii, she knew how to do everything and anything, if she didn't know how to do it she learned in less than a minute by watching what you were doing. She was truly amazing, I really do miss her, she was the one that taught me what a loving mother is. For that reason alone I have dedicated my life to being just like her, kind, loving, supportive, and tough when needed.
It took me just a little bit to realize what good fortune I had by letting my feet lead the way through my destiny. When I left beaten, bruised and sore from the house that was (by law) my home I had no idea where I was going to go, or if I even had a place to go. I just panicked, got scared and ran away. The first thing that Nakagan taught me in my life that I have retained is to never run away from your problems, face them head on and do not back down. Good advice that has kept me alive through everything up to now, very good advice indeed. I woke up every day from the moment I decided to stay with Nakagana and Kashii with a smile, a warm feeling, a hug and a word of encouragement. I was not expected to be up and have the morning coffee and meal ready. We would wake up and we would do for each other, we would help each other, we would work together. That is how our life was spent, together, as one whole family, yet each individual. Not one dictator or ruler, not one servant, just one collective whole.
Once I had healed up and I was maintaining a normal living, Nakagana came up to me one day and said, "Yoji come with me in the back yard, I need your help with something." He smirked and then walked away, I followed behind him.
He stopped in front of a large roped off area in the back yard, on one side of it was some stacks of wood, on the other side of it was boxes of shingles. He motioned over to the area that had the wood and two tool belts by it. Each belt had the same amount of tools in it, all of them matching, and each belt had a name printed on it. One said Nakagana the other said Yojiro. I was oddly touched by this little sentiment, it was something that I had never experienced before. He stood next to me while we were putting on our belts and he told me what we were going to do.
"For many years Kashii has wanted me to build her a pagoda in the backyard. I have been meaning to do this for her, however with lack of help around here, I have not been able to do so. Now that I have you here, and you seem willing to help, we can build it for Kashii. Do you think we can do this?" He was studying my face to see what I was going to answer. I looked him driectly in the eye and gave him the yes he had been looking for.
We spent the rest of that day measuring the wood and sawing it to the measurements that we made three times per board. We started to get a frame work done on the pagoda's floor when Kashii came out to check up on our progress. She had brought out our dinner on a tray with some drinks. It was so refreshing to have someone show actual concern and caring for me, I was overwhelmed at first but became used to it very fast. The smile on her face when she saw what it was that we were doing was something that I could never find the right words to use to express to you. I can tell you that it lit up her face and actually brought tears to her eyes, as it did mine. Kashii turned to her husband and hugged him very tight, and said thank you over and over again to him. It seemed odd to have such a huge reaction to a pagoda being built, however when we started to work on it I realized what it was that we were actually building.
Nakagana showed to me the blueprints that he made up. They included a floor that was twenty feet long and thrity feet wide on each side. He had a small little deck area off of the pagoda that was a raised octagon platform that had a railing and bench seats all around it, basically it was a sitting and entertaining area. Inside there was a hallway that ran the entire length and was about four feet wide, on the other side of the door way when you walked in was a wall that ran the rest of the length of the floor. It seperated the pagoda off into two large rooms, both of them decorated drastically different.
In one of the rooms Kashii had the job of decorating and making it feel like a sancturary for herself. She made the room look just like the room she had grown up in back in Fujimayra so long ago. She was able to take the only remaining picture she had of her mother and father and hang it on the wall, next to the symbols of love and family she painted in calligraphy on the wall next to the portrait. Everything else she had to recreate from memory, being that her village had been burned to the ground from the roving bandits of the hills. The only thing that she could not bring back to life was her mother and father as they had been slaughtered in front of her as they tried to protect her against the bandits. I thought that making something that would remind you of that terrible time in your life would be traumatic to the senses, however through her outlook on life and her beautiful soul I was able to find out that it had quite the opposite effect. I am very thankful she showed me that, for it was helpful for me later in life.
On the other side of the gazebo was the room that Nakagana was allowed to decorate. He made a very simple, bamboo framed room that had a small raised platform in the far back corner made of hardwood, stained very dark, almost black. In the middle of the raised platform was the prayer table that he had in the living room before we completed the pagoda. He had several incense holders and incense sticks burning around the dark ivory statue of Buddah. Along one whole wall of the room was Nakagana's collection of swords, daggers, stars, knives and other assorted weaponry that he had collected over the years. With each weapon he had a story as to how he acquired them, ranging from fights to the death, to buying them out of the mail orders he had sent to him. In the middle of the room was the floor made out of bamboo, hard and unforgiving when fell on, that he had a pattern of circles painted on. In the middle was the smallest circle, three feet off from that circle was a larger circle, three feet out from that an even bigger circle. All of the circles were connected by lines that ran in a perpendicular pattern through the middle of all of the circles. This was his training area, his dojo.
It was in this dojo that Nakagana taught me some of the most imprtant and worthwhile lessons of my life. This is the dojo in which I was taught how to be a sharpened edge of a knife, how I learned how to be an efficient killer, a powerful warrior, through the tutelage of Nakagana I learned how to be a samurai.
It took me just a little bit to realize what good fortune I had by letting my feet lead the way through my destiny. When I left beaten, bruised and sore from the house that was (by law) my home I had no idea where I was going to go, or if I even had a place to go. I just panicked, got scared and ran away. The first thing that Nakagan taught me in my life that I have retained is to never run away from your problems, face them head on and do not back down. Good advice that has kept me alive through everything up to now, very good advice indeed. I woke up every day from the moment I decided to stay with Nakagana and Kashii with a smile, a warm feeling, a hug and a word of encouragement. I was not expected to be up and have the morning coffee and meal ready. We would wake up and we would do for each other, we would help each other, we would work together. That is how our life was spent, together, as one whole family, yet each individual. Not one dictator or ruler, not one servant, just one collective whole.
Once I had healed up and I was maintaining a normal living, Nakagana came up to me one day and said, "Yoji come with me in the back yard, I need your help with something." He smirked and then walked away, I followed behind him.
He stopped in front of a large roped off area in the back yard, on one side of it was some stacks of wood, on the other side of it was boxes of shingles. He motioned over to the area that had the wood and two tool belts by it. Each belt had the same amount of tools in it, all of them matching, and each belt had a name printed on it. One said Nakagana the other said Yojiro. I was oddly touched by this little sentiment, it was something that I had never experienced before. He stood next to me while we were putting on our belts and he told me what we were going to do.
"For many years Kashii has wanted me to build her a pagoda in the backyard. I have been meaning to do this for her, however with lack of help around here, I have not been able to do so. Now that I have you here, and you seem willing to help, we can build it for Kashii. Do you think we can do this?" He was studying my face to see what I was going to answer. I looked him driectly in the eye and gave him the yes he had been looking for.
We spent the rest of that day measuring the wood and sawing it to the measurements that we made three times per board. We started to get a frame work done on the pagoda's floor when Kashii came out to check up on our progress. She had brought out our dinner on a tray with some drinks. It was so refreshing to have someone show actual concern and caring for me, I was overwhelmed at first but became used to it very fast. The smile on her face when she saw what it was that we were doing was something that I could never find the right words to use to express to you. I can tell you that it lit up her face and actually brought tears to her eyes, as it did mine. Kashii turned to her husband and hugged him very tight, and said thank you over and over again to him. It seemed odd to have such a huge reaction to a pagoda being built, however when we started to work on it I realized what it was that we were actually building.
Nakagana showed to me the blueprints that he made up. They included a floor that was twenty feet long and thrity feet wide on each side. He had a small little deck area off of the pagoda that was a raised octagon platform that had a railing and bench seats all around it, basically it was a sitting and entertaining area. Inside there was a hallway that ran the entire length and was about four feet wide, on the other side of the door way when you walked in was a wall that ran the rest of the length of the floor. It seperated the pagoda off into two large rooms, both of them decorated drastically different.
In one of the rooms Kashii had the job of decorating and making it feel like a sancturary for herself. She made the room look just like the room she had grown up in back in Fujimayra so long ago. She was able to take the only remaining picture she had of her mother and father and hang it on the wall, next to the symbols of love and family she painted in calligraphy on the wall next to the portrait. Everything else she had to recreate from memory, being that her village had been burned to the ground from the roving bandits of the hills. The only thing that she could not bring back to life was her mother and father as they had been slaughtered in front of her as they tried to protect her against the bandits. I thought that making something that would remind you of that terrible time in your life would be traumatic to the senses, however through her outlook on life and her beautiful soul I was able to find out that it had quite the opposite effect. I am very thankful she showed me that, for it was helpful for me later in life.
On the other side of the gazebo was the room that Nakagana was allowed to decorate. He made a very simple, bamboo framed room that had a small raised platform in the far back corner made of hardwood, stained very dark, almost black. In the middle of the raised platform was the prayer table that he had in the living room before we completed the pagoda. He had several incense holders and incense sticks burning around the dark ivory statue of Buddah. Along one whole wall of the room was Nakagana's collection of swords, daggers, stars, knives and other assorted weaponry that he had collected over the years. With each weapon he had a story as to how he acquired them, ranging from fights to the death, to buying them out of the mail orders he had sent to him. In the middle of the room was the floor made out of bamboo, hard and unforgiving when fell on, that he had a pattern of circles painted on. In the middle was the smallest circle, three feet off from that circle was a larger circle, three feet out from that an even bigger circle. All of the circles were connected by lines that ran in a perpendicular pattern through the middle of all of the circles. This was his training area, his dojo.
It was in this dojo that Nakagana taught me some of the most imprtant and worthwhile lessons of my life. This is the dojo in which I was taught how to be a sharpened edge of a knife, how I learned how to be an efficient killer, a powerful warrior, through the tutelage of Nakagana I learned how to be a samurai.
posted by Yojiro at 8:02 AM
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