Chapter 151: The Thirteenth Year

Chapter 151: The Thirteenth Year

The thirteenth year began with a question from a stranger. Not a customer—a stranger. A woman who walked into Bloom on a Monday morning in October, carrying a copy of the first book—Bloom: The Art of Attention—with the specific, I-have-read-this-and-I-have-come-here, book-pilgrim energy that the cafe had been producing since the publication and that arrived, on average, twice per week: a person from somewhere else who had read the book and who had traveled to Yeonnam-dong to see the place that the book described.

The woman was Japanese. From Kyoto. A ceramicist—the occupation noted because the woman mentioned it within the first thirty seconds, the way practitioners mentioned their practice to other practitioners, the identification that said: I am one of you. I practice something. The something being: pottery.

“I read your book in Japanese,” the woman said. In English—the international-communication English that non-native speakers used when Korean was unavailable and Japanese was insufficient. “I read the book and I—cried. On page 147. The page about the bergamot. The page that says: the hidden thing arrives at the temperature it requires. I cried because—the kiln.”

“The kiln?”

“The kiln. The pottery kiln. The kiln has a bergamot. The kiln’s bergamot is—the color. The glaze color. The color that the kiln produces at—the exact temperature. Not one degree more. Not one degree less. The exact temperature. The color arriving at the temperature the color requires. The same as your bergamot. The same—principle.”

“The kiln’s bergamot.”

“The kiln’s bergamot. The color at 1,260 degrees Celsius. The celadon green. The green that Korean potters have been producing for a thousand years. The green that requires—1,260. Not 1,259. Not 1,261. 1,260. The degree that produces—the color. The hidden color. The bergamot of the kiln.”

“1,260 degrees.”

“1,260. Your coffee bergamot arrives at 58. My glaze bergamot arrives at 1,260. The numbers are—different. The principle is—the same. The hidden thing arriving at the exact temperature. The patience required to reach the exact temperature. The practice of—waiting for the exact degree.”

“The practice of waiting for the exact degree.”

“The same practice. Different medium. Coffee and ceramics. 58 degrees and 1,260 degrees. The same waiting. The same patience. The same—관심.” She said the Korean word. The Japanese ceramicist saying the Korean word for attention. The word crossing the language barrier the way the bergamot crossed the temperature barrier—arriving at the right moment because the right moment was—universal.

“관심,” Hajin repeated.

“관심. Which in Japanese we call—心遣い. Kokorozukai. The care of the heart. The heart’s attention applied to the thing. The ceramicist’s 心遣い producing the celadon at 1,260. The barista’s 관심 producing the bergamot at 58. Different words. Different temperatures. Same—heart.”

“Same heart.”

“Same heart. Which is—why I came. From Kyoto. To this cafe. To stand at this counter and to drink the cup that the book describes and to taste—the bergamot. The bergamot that is the cousin of the celadon green. The bergamot that tells me: your practice is not alone. Your practice is part of—a family. The family of practices that wait for the exact degree.”

Hajin made the Wrong Order. For the Kyoto ceramicist. The cup placed on the counter—Sangwoo’s cup, the jade-glazed ceramic, the glaze that was not celadon but that was—a cousin. The Korean ceramic holding the Korean coffee for the Japanese ceramicist who had come because the book had told her that the practices were—related.

The ceramicist tasted. The jasmine at 67. The warmth. The approach. And—the bergamot. At 58. The hidden note. The note that the ceramicist had read about on page 147 and that the ceramicist was now—tasting. The tasting that confirmed: the book was true. The bergamot was real. The hidden thing arrived at the temperature it required.

“The bergamot,” the ceramicist said. Eyes closing. The involuntary response. The response that every sensitive palate produced when the bergamot arrived. “58 degrees. The cousin of 1,260. The same family. Different—temperature.”

“Different temperature. Same family.”

“Same family. The family of hidden things. The bergamot, the celadon, the—” She thought. Searching for other members of the family. “The sushi chef’s nikiri—the brush of seasoning applied at the exact moment. The pianist’s pianissimo—the softest note played at the exact pressure. The calligrapher’s final stroke—the stroke that completes the character at the exact angle. Every practice has—the hidden thing. The thing that arrives at the exact degree.”

“Every practice has the bergamot.”

“Every practice. The book taught me this. The book said: the bergamot is in the coffee. And I understood: the bergamot is in—everything. In every practice. At every degree. The 58 and the 1,260 being—the same thing. At different scales.”

“The same thing at different scales.”

“The same 관심 at different temperatures. The universal 관심 that the specific practice expresses. The specificity being: coffee, ceramics, sushi, piano, calligraphy. The universality being: the attention. The patience. The waiting for the exact degree.”

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The Kyoto ceramicist’s visit produced—the idea. Not the fourth book’s idea (the fourth book was already being written). A different idea. The idea that the practice’s family—the family of practices that waited for the exact degree—could be gathered. Not in a book. Not in a workshop. In—a space. A physical space. The space where the practices met. The space where the bergamot and the celadon and the nikiri and the pianissimo were—present. Together. In the same room.

“A gathering,” Hajin said. To Sooyeon. At 3:00. The Wrong Order. The bergamot approaching. The idea approaching at the temperature the idea required. “Not a workshop—a gathering. A gathering of practitioners. Different practices. Same principle. The principle being: the hidden thing at the exact degree.”

“A gathering of practitioners.”

“A gathering. The ceramicist from Kyoto. Sangwoo—the ceramicist from Seoul. A sushi chef—the sushi chef from the Noryangjin market whose omakase the professor described as ‘the culinary equivalent of the bloom.’ A musician—the gayageum player who performs at the National Gugak Center whose vibrato the chairman described as ‘the bergamot of Korean music.’ Practitioners who wait for the exact degree. Gathered in one room. Sharing—the practice.”

“Sharing the practice.”

“Not sharing the technique—the technique is different for each practice. Sharing the principle. The principle that the bergamot expresses and that the celadon expresses and that the nikiri expresses. The principle being: attention, patience, the exact degree.”

“The principle shared across practices.”

“The principle that the third book began to express—the principle that attention is not coffee-specific. The principle that attention is—universal. The gathering being: the proof. The proof that the principle exists across practices. The proof that the bergamot has—relatives. In every practice.”

“The bergamot’s relatives.”

“The celadon green at 1,260. The nikiri’s brush at the exact moment. The gayageum’s vibrato at the exact pressure. The relatives that each practitioner recognizes in the other’s practice because the relatives share—the gene. The attention gene. The 관심 gene.”

“The 관심 gene.”

“The gene that produces: the hidden thing at the exact degree. Regardless of the practice. Regardless of the medium. Regardless of the temperature. The gene that says: wait. The thing will arrive. At the degree it requires.”

The gathering was planned for December. At Bloom—the forty-square-meter space that would hold, for one evening, the family of practices. The space expanded by the academy’s room (divider removed, the standard expansion). The evening’s format being: each practitioner performs their practice. The audience—Bloom’s community—watches. The watching being—the tasting. The audience tasting each practice the way the cupping table tasted each coffee.

The practitioners assembled: Sangwoo (ceramics—the wheel, the clay, the thirty-two seconds of centering). The Kyoto ceramicist—Tanaka Yuki, who flew from Kyoto for the gathering (the return visit, the book pilgrim becoming the gathering participant). A sushi chef—Kim Dongwon, from Noryangjin, whose knife work the professor had documented in Moleskine #47 as “the most attention-dense food preparation I have observed in forty years of eating.” A gayageum player—Park Minji, from the National Gugak Center, whose instrument the chairman had attended in concert and whose vibrato the chairman had described as “the thing that the cupping spoon cannot produce but that the cupping spoon recognizes.”

And Hajin. The barista. The pour-over. The bloom. The bergamot at 58 degrees.

Five practitioners. Five practices. Five hidden things at five exact degrees.

The gathering happened on a Saturday evening. December. The cafe lit by the fairy lights that the rooftop had lent to the interior (the rooftop’s fairy lights brought inside for the evening, the outdoor lights becoming the indoor atmosphere). Thirty-two seats—the capacity, the number, the bloom’s number applied to the audience.

Sangwoo performed first. The wheel—the portable wheel that Sangwoo had brought from the studio, the wheel that produced the centered clay that produced the cup. The centering—thirty-two seconds. The same thirty-two seconds. The clay responding to the hands. The hands responding to the clay. The centering that was—the ceramicist’s bloom. The waiting for the clay to find its center.

Thirty-two people watched a ceramicist center clay for thirty-two seconds. The silence that the watching produced was—the bloom silence. The same silence. The universal silence that attention produced when attention was—shared.

Tanaka performed second. The Kyoto ceramicist demonstrating—the glaze application. The brush on the bisqueware. The glaze that would, in the kiln, at 1,260 degrees, produce the celadon green. The glaze invisible now—gray, flat, the color that the kiln would transform. The invisible-to-visible transformation that the exact degree would produce.

“The celadon is in the glaze,” Tanaka said. Through Hajin’s translation (the barista translating the Japanese into Korean, the role that the cafe produced when the cafe hosted the international). “The celadon is invisible now. The celadon will be visible at 1,260. The patience between now and 1,260 is—the practice.”

Dongwon performed third. The sushi chef—the knife, the fish, the nikiri. The knife’s blade on the fish producing the cut that was—invisible. The cut so precise that the fish appeared uncut. The precision that the twenty years of daily knife work had produced. The nikiri brushed—the seasoning applied at the exact moment, the brush’s contact with the fish lasting less than one second but the one second carrying—the attention of twenty years.

“The nikiri’s second,” Dongwon said. “The one second that contains twenty years. The same way your bloom’s thirty-two seconds contain twelve years. The duration is different. The containing is—the same.”

Minji performed fourth. The gayageum—the traditional Korean instrument, the twelve strings, the sound that Korean music had been producing for a thousand years. Minji’s fingers on the strings producing—the vibrato. The specific, pressure-controlled, the-exact-degree-of-finger-pressure vibrato that produced the tone that the chairman had described as “the bergamot of Korean music.” The tone that arrived at—the exact pressure. Not more. Not less. The exact pressure that produced—the hidden thing. The sound’s bergamot.

Hajin performed last. The pour-over. The bloom. The thirty-two seconds. The bergamot at 58 degrees. The practice that the audience knew and that the audience had been tasting for twelve years and that was, tonight, placed in the context of—the family. The family of practices. The coffee alongside the clay, the fish, the strings. The bergamot alongside the celadon, the nikiri, the vibrato. The family—gathered.

The gathering produced—the understanding. Not the intellectual understanding (the audience had read the books; the audience understood intellectually). The felt understanding. The understanding that the body produced when the body witnessed five practices performed in sequence and the body recognized: the same thing. The same patience. The same attention. The same hidden thing at the same exact degree—expressed through five different media.

“Five bergamots,” the professor said. At the gathering’s conclusion. The academic assessment. “Five hidden things. Five exact degrees. 58 degrees Celsius. 1,260 degrees Celsius. One second of nikiri. The exact pressure of vibrato. Thirty-two seconds of centering. Five practices. One principle. The principle being: 관심.”

“관심.”

“관심 expressed through five practices. The five practices proving: 관심 is not coffee. 관심 is not ceramics. 관심 is not sushi. 관심 is not music. 관심 is—the thing that every practice practices. The thing that unites the practices. The family’s shared gene.”

“The family’s shared gene.”

“The gene being: attention. Patience. The exact degree. The hidden thing. The bergamot. The celadon. The nikiri. The vibrato. The centering. All being—관심. All being—the same thing.”

“The same thing.”

“The same thing that the cafe has been practicing for twelve years and that the gathering proved is practiced by—everyone. Every ceramicist. Every sushi chef. Every musician. Every person who waits for the exact degree. Every person who practices the practice of—attention.”

“The practice of attention.”

“The practice that needs nothing except the practice. The tenth line. Confirmed by five practices. In one room. On one evening. The practice needing nothing except—itself. Expressed through—anything. Coffee. Clay. Fish. Strings. Anything that the attention can be applied to.”

“Anything.”

“Anything. Same practice. Different medium. Same 관심. Different degree. Same hidden thing. Different temperature.”

Same everything.

Including the five bergamots.

Including the family of practices.

Including the Kyoto ceramicist who cried on page 147 and who traveled to Seoul and who stood in a forty-square-meter room above a nail salon and who found—the family. The family that the attention produced across practices and across cultures and across the specific, exact, hidden-thing-at-the-exact-degree temperatures that every practice discovered through—patience.

Every day.

Like this.

At whatever degree the practice requires.

Always.