The Universe Keeps Moving
Titus kept his trains running round and round their tracks as I gave him a blow-by-blow account of the phone call the previous night.
Every time they went over Mishima’s head, he thumped the parquet floor with his tail.
When I finished talking, Titus was still concentrating deeply on their circular progress.
Then he slowly turned toward me and pronounced: “There’s nothing you can do right now except for accepting the wabi-sabi of all things, including love. ”
“That word was on the first postcard . . .” I said, thinking aloud. “So, you’ve worked out what wabi- sabi means, then?”
“I certainly have! So much so that I have decided—or rather Gottfried Kerstin has decided—to write a whole wabi-sabi guide. I have a publisher who’s interested, and I wrote the prologue today.”
I was immediately on guard. I hadn’t forgotten the time when Titus was ill and had roped me into writing one of his books.
“Read this and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”
He clicked on a document he had on his desktop. Indeed, Gottfried Kerstin was presenting a concept that is deeply rooted in Japanese culture.
The expression wabi-sabi opens into a whole aesthetic concept and at once a philosophy of life.
Wabi-sabi refers to the beauty of what is imperfect, temporary and incomplete.
This idea, like so many other aspects of Japanese culture, is inspired by observation of nature.
Nothing in nature is perfect—or at least not in the geometric, Euclidean sense of perfection as conceived in the West—because it is full of asymmetries.
Nothing is permanent in nature, for every living thing is born and dies and is undergoing constant change; nothing in nature is finished or complete because the idea of completion is just an abstraction created by the human mind.
The wabi-sabi philosophy appeared in response to sixteenth-century Chinese perfectionism, and is present in the tea ceremony, in ikebana flower arrangement, haiku and Noh theater.
“Nothing is permanent,” I repeated. “Is that what you meant when you were talking about love?”
“If we think of love as just another human art then, according to the Japanese, it would have to be in accordance with wabi-sabi principles. It’s imperfect because every couple is the sum and friction of two imperfections.
Love is unfinished because, for better or worse, relationships never stop evolving.
And, yes, it is temporary or impermanent.
You have to make the most of it while it lasts. ”
“Then . . . you don’t think that love can be eternal, like it is in stories or romantic movies made in Hollywood?”
Titus stopped his trains, as if he had very clear ideas on the matter.
Hunched in his chair and looking jadedly up at me, he declared, “No, it can never be that. Even the relationship of two people who get on marvelously well finishes one day, because one dies before the other.” He sat quietly for a moment, pondering his words.
“Unless they do something stupid together, of course.”
“You might be right,” I sighed, “but that’s no comfort when you’ve just been kicked in the teeth.”
“Now you’re feeling hurt, but that will also change.”
I didn’t know what to say. While talking to Titus, I was wondering how long it was since he’d been in love.
He’d been alone ever since I’d known him.
I only knew that he’d had a wife once, but he had left her because—according to him—she made him dizzy with her chatter, when all he wanted was peace and quiet.
“But Gabriela didn’t say it’s over either.” I held my ground. “She only said she needed a break for a while. She’s staying with some woman—a friend of hers. Maybe she’ll come back after that.”
“Or she might never come back. Don’t get your hopes up, or you’ll be running the risk of waiting for a bus on a canceled route.”
“I was hoping you’d cheer me up, Titus,” I protested, “but you’re just making things look worse and worse. Why can’t we have a second chance? I wouldn’t say it’s finished forever.”
“The universe keeps moving.”
These disconcerting words put an end to the conversation. The minutes were ticking by, and Titus probably wanted to get back to his manuscript.
I thanked him for the tea and his efforts to help me, though I felt even gloomier than I had before coming up to see him.
I was about to leave, when he looked up and said, “If I were you, I’d go and visit that friend of yours in the vacation. It would do you good to get away from your everyday world.”
“Which friend?”
“The one who’s sending you postcards from Kyoto. Nothing ever happens without a reason. You know what I think about that. If those messages are coming to you right now, it means that you have to follow the thread and discover something. Well, I’d go there if I were you.”