I’ve begun to get a small obsession with sitting in different Kyoto, Zen temples with dry raked and or moss gardens.
My favourite so far is Daisen In temple where I sat with a Japanese architect viewing the gardens in wonder together – but no photos were allowed of this astonishing place – I do have Instagram reels of the temples – @traceydoxey. Sitting on at ancient wooden verandas surrounding these gardens, I usually end up facing south whereupon, I get my knitting out
I’ve begun to take instax shots of them. Some work, some don’t.
I have already had so many wonderful experiences but for me, the most memorable things about kyoto are the Zen dry gardens, and knitting in the sunshine. No one moves me on, I can just sit there with everyone filing past at their own paces. I’m in heaven.
Yesterday, at Tofuku- Ji temple, (my 2nd visit) I was knitting in the warm wonderful winter sunshine on the great wooden veranda facing the south garden with a backdrop of Japanese wedding photography, when I saw a man with a rake and knew what he was about to do.
I thought the raking was a secret, I thought the gardens are raked before people arrive but here he was, beginning to rake the 8 great oceans. Everyone there was silenced in great respect of his skill.
When I arrived, there was a wedding photography session going on – with the ancient temple as a backdrop. Sometimes, the photos are real, sometimes they are dress up. But yesterday, was real. I sat on the veranda beside the 81year old grandma of the bride. We were both chasing the sun. She was delightful – I mean full of delight and must have been all of 4ft 8. I gestured if I could take her photo. She had no idea what the instax was. So I took 2, one for her and one for me. She was astonished. She chose the one she wanted and laughed and laughed. We sat together for ages. The wedding photographer even took our photo
I feel very lucky to have seen all of this at Tofuku-ji but it is about spending lengthy time in one place, engaging with the environment fully and the people within it. Then, you never know what will happen.
If you are a reader of this post and love reading about Kyoto and love knitting, I will give 20% off any of my patterns for the new year – runnin for the next 24 hours use the code – blogpost
After waiting for it to open, to being completely overwhelmed by the contents of the tiny place, from listening to the owner who is the 18th generation of over 400 years of the same family, to sell sewing needles, in this tiny place – down an alley in a shopping mall – to restraining myself and replacing the initial selection. Then, after buying my painstakingly considered choice, I sit in the zen garden in front of the tiny shop hoping for the jade green bird with the white circles round it’s eyes to return. A steady stream of women visit and ponder the wonders of sewing needles. Not just any sewing needles but French ones and Japanese ones for silk kimonos, long ones for denim and then, the very special hand made ones which are so very expensive that I still don’t think they pay enough for the skilled craftsman who hand-makes a steel needle with an eye for sewing thread.
I ponder the wonders that I have just seen – some of which, I cannot see well enough to see the eye at the end of the finest needles hich a Japanese seamstress uses. The owner, explains to me he lost his hair in 2000, whilst he is pulling out small cane woven baskets from under the counter, containing sewing needles in their neat rows related to sizes, which are placed inside a neatly fitted cushioni. So when I look and try to figure out which needles my friend in Shetland might want, he patiently tells me the story of each size and what they are for. I choose us both the same – French needles – sizes 6 and 7’s then we have a hope of threading them. I buy a pack of 8’s and also a tiny hand-made pin cushion and one of those wire things to aid threading a needle with a tiny eye, which he promptly tells me is not special ( you can buy this anywhere) and it will break. But, the needles are another story – fine packaging is the appeal too. The owner counts up how much I owe him but I don’t really mind. A Japanese lady, about my age, and he mother, in her 80’s are in the shop with me. The mum is so lovely – I hope not to sound patronising, which I also say to the daughter when I say that her mum is adorable. She has shrunk to tiny and she is as sharp as a pin herself. This is their first time in the shop although the mum lives close by. Her nifty hands feel the needles, as did mine.
The shop is a tiny explosive experience of need/ want/ desire management which requires restraint. After all, they are only needles and only a pin cushion, aren’t they?
As we three customers chat, the owner points out the marvellous bright green little Kyoto bird that has flown into the garden for the oranges. It is exquisite, so after I have paid, I move to the bench in the garden, waiting for it to return while a new stream of buyers file past, into the tiny shop. This exquisite little heavenly garden fronting the shop is a dream – granite bird water baths, large stones covered in moss like the moss gardens in the temples, small low growing lilac flowers, deep red camelia, berries and two trees. Irises too.
No bird returns so I finally haul myself off the bench and head back down the tiny alley to the crazy life outside this calm oasis.
The needle shop is Misuyabari, located on Sanjo Dori inside the shopping centre – it is closed on Thursdays. It might take you till then to find it.
It is exactly one week to the minute that I stepped off the overnight ferry from Lerwick, arriving in Aberdeen at 7am on the morning of 14th August after a ten hour visit to Shetland to see the little house with a view of the sea. A long arduous journey back to Sheffield was ahead of me with so many thoughts within me.
The three hour bus journey from Aberdeen to Edinburgh gave me ample time to self sabotage with whys, hows, and what ifs about my decisions to move a thousand miles. Parallel to the broken disjointed eight hour journey down the east coast of England to Sheffield, my thoughts shifted, opened, slipped and dispersed across my lap in front of me. The beauty of the landscape blurred by to my left, without being seen, both on bus and train – I never looked outward – only in. Of course, I was beyond tired having travelled non stop for three days whilst dealing with life changing decisions of buying a tiny house without any idea of future plans.
Now, exactly one week to the hour and minute of docking in Aberdeen, I’m able to reflect whilst beside me, within the folds of the deep quilt on the bed, my loving cat lies sleeping unaware of what is going to happen in a few weeks for the long return journey north. During the last week, so many physical, emotional and sensory things have happened since that whistle stop ten hour visit to Shetland with 24 hours travel on either side, which also entailed major disruptions from a tragic derailment, a heart-breaking loss of life from that train ahead of me, journey decisions on the hoof and scary heart stopping moments of trying to make a ferry leaving the country whilst stranded four hours away form the point of catching it. There were times during journey that I really thought I would not make that ferry for Lerwick which was leaving from Aberdeen – a city on lockdown where I had no place to stay or go.
Here is an extract from my urgent, cathartic scribblings on 12th August.
At Newcastle, I’m told there are no trains from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, due to major landslides and floods on the track. Initially, I feel sick but also naively hopeful – as if it will all clear up and get working for when I arrive – either this is a princess talking to herself about being above all this or more pragmatically and closer to the truth; me burying my head. After conversations with the lady at information in Newcastle station – who assures me that Scotrail have a duty to get me to Aberdeen – (looking back I now think why would the make sure I would make my ferry?) and that there will be buses provided. Beside her, I stand on the platform and urgently call the ferry company – I have until 5pm to cancel but really, I’m being pushed further up the country with no idea of what will happen and no way to get back with a massive back pack, old lady shopping trolly full of precious china from China, a front day pack with laptop and a bag with water. Add Corona to that with masks, social distancing, hand sanitiser, no toilets on some trains, no tickets, lockdown in Aberdeen, no place to stay and I’m already thinking of turning back. I call Patti and mention that maybe this is a sign. She said it’s not a sign. There’s maybe no chance of going forward, chance of being stuck and not getting back yet I naively still think there is a way. The information lady gets me on an earlier train out of Newcastle to arrive in Edinburgh 20 minutes ahead of my planned time. I sit in first class waiting to be moved by the conductor who knows I am there and talks with passengers and leaves me be.
This whole incident is teaching me to not give up – keep trying.
Newcastle
letter to no one
Little did I know in Newcastle, the terrible tragic severity of the mentioned landslides and floods. Little did they know. Near Stonehaven, the train had changed route after halting due to flooding on the line, then hitting another flood or a landslide, it had rolled down a steep embankment and caught fire – the driver, conductor and one passenger were dead, six were injured. The crash had not been noted for some time because it was in an isolated place. I cannot think how terrifying it must have been for those passengers and how shocking the outcome is for everyone.
Between Newcastle and Aberdeen, a friend messaged me and I relayed all the problems of travel and that I was heading for Edinburgh and there had been flooding and I was hoping it would be cleared up by the time I got there but if it wasn’t – I had no idea. She suggested Megabus out of Edinburgh and sent me the times of the two buses to get me to the ferry in time (just) for the overnight crossing to Lerwick and my 9am meeting of the house I am buying the next day. She mentioned a regular bus service could also be an option if there were no buses provided for stranded passengers. But I knew that booking had to be way in advance because of corona and social distancing, everything was stacking up against not making the ferry. In my head, catching a bus was not an option I had thought about or considered or could do. It seemed unthinkable to go the last 130 miles by an unplanned bus. She screen shot two photos of mega bus times.
Five hours into my journey, my sinking thoughts were that if I couldn’t make the journey to Aberdeen through cancellation of services, then was this the right move to an island and was this was the calm before the storm. At that point, I could not hear self-sabotage starting. She encouraged me, she wrote,
‘how many people would have continued once Covid happened? Here you are now, one more push, you are the one still standing. If you do everything you can and it doesn’t work, then there will be just accepting it but if you have not tried, there will always be the what if in your mind’.
This message from a woman who had gone through her own deep searching journey on an island was not to be dismissed and gratefully received.
However, Edinburgh Waverly Station was in turmoil. Of the many Scotrail staff in the station, none were able to help me with advice, they pushed me from one to another staff member then on to LNER to see if I could get a bus from them to Aberdeen – at which point I was turned away and back to Scotrail. Scotrail provided no back up transport on Weds. Not once did Sctorail staff suggest to go to the bus station, not once did they offer any suggestion to meet the ferry at Aberdeen and I was stranded, way up north, in between destinations so I ran, dragged the bags and made it to the bus station in search of Megabus. I asked for the ticket office. All closed due to Covid and then I saw it, the Megabus itself. A glorious shining blue double decker to Aberdeen to arrive in time for the ferry. I asked the driver, he said get on and at that moment, I could have kissed him. Lockdown or not, virus or not, he was my ticket to the ferry. Backpack unceremoniously thrown in to the hold and a discussion over the wheeled shopping trolly carrying precious china that in the long run, meant nothing – my water and I boarded the megabus and I became instantly hungry. How do you eat when your hands have touched many rails, handles, tables, bags, trains, doors, buses in a virus where there is no water to wash your hands? You use hand sanitizer and hope.
leaving Edinburgh
Later, when I caught my breath, I wrote: As the bus crosses the bridge towards Dundee, over the Firth of Tay, I feel it – a small but discernible hint of excitement.
As the bus pulled in to Aberdeen, I felt as if I had crossed the line of resilience and built an experience through friendship that stands the test of time. It’s not easy for me to accept help having built a wall around my independence and feelings over many years – I noted – We need to look out for each other, hang on in there and keep trying. I learned a lot from today. No wo/man is an island, we work better with friends.
And I have Mati to thank for getting me on that Megabus to make the last call for the ferry.
In the morning, I dressed on the ferry to meet my house, as if for an interview – would the house like me – you never get a second chance to make a first impression – I already liked it without ever having met or seen or been inside or touched or smelled it. I knew I more than liked it. Maybe I was a little overdressed to meet the house. Silk blouse, navy trousers, packed for another season another place in mind. I looked slightly neat but knew the back pack, front pack and bags would sort that appearance into a more well-worn dishevelled look. It was the first time I had worn socks and trainers since March. My sun marked feet pushed into trainers.
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tracey doxey 