September 19th, 2006
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Building traditions
Things that are regular and predictable are comforting. It makes me feel like I’m in control, and that I have a sense of purpose. So, I have a handful of annual events that I try to attend, and when I miss out on them it saddens me. One is the daradara matsuri, a festival at the famous Shiba Daijingu at Daimon. For hundreds of years this shrine has been important to Edo-Tokyo life, and every year in September the wondrous powers of fresh ginger are celebrated. So I go to the shrine and buy a bundle of the pungent and exotic plant from the kind, ceremonially-clad elderly folks at the shrine.
This year I managed to get there at about the same time as usual, just before closing. I got a special preparation for receiving the last roots in stock at the moment, and along with my purchase a bag of delicious ginger candy as well. The jovial man who sold it to me beamed as he extolled the many virtues of ginger, in particular how consuming the root would make it easier to bear healthy children, and give me the “strength” to invoke such a process– in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening as well, apparently.
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Behold the all magnificient ginger! It’s delicious! It’s nutritious! It helps you get up in the morning!
After thanking the gods for so much fortune in my road to Geisai, I went to the nearby Zojoji, arriving just in time for the monks’ five o’clock meditation and chanting. I wish I could say that I came to some sort of realization, or even that I calmed down a little, but unfortunately I’m still wound way too tight for any of it to even scratch the surface of my shaky mental state.
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It was this little shot of Cuervo at dinner in Azabu Juban that got me motivated to make a spur of the moment decision about travel. Diego would be proud.
But I have my ginger to make my brown rice stir fry with, and I have the solace of performing one more annual ritual that makes me part of this culture-dripping city of old.
