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President Carter
Time travel
Thoughts for the New Year
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Ichigo, Ichie is a Japanese proverb which translates to One Time, One Meeting. No single moment can ever be repeated, so cherish it and the time together.
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My friend posted this photo with comments about President Carter.
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Corby’s post had a profound effect on me. Here was one encounter over five years ago and the effects were lasting and positive. Maybe they were lasting because they were positive. That, and we tend to remember meeting a President.
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If you could travel back in time, who would you meet?
This is the premise of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s book, Before the Coffee Gets Cold. It’s set in Tokyo, but for you and me, let’s imagine the question refers to a certain cafe which happens to serve coffee in a ritual that makes time travel possible. There are strict rules. You must be in the particular chair that faces the three clocks on the wall. And, you must know that time travel will not change events that have already occured. Death, departures, births, etc. And, there are more rules and rituals.
The book is divided into four parts which share the stories of lovers, husband and wife, sisters, and a mother and child. Oh! and another thing, the cafe is the only place you can visit and you are not able to move from your seat, so you can only visit people you have met there or will meet there.
You must return to the present before the coffee gets cold. Basically that allows you to have one meeting of fairly short duration, the time it takes to finish your coffee. What type of meeting would that be? Perhaps you would go back for a spat, a love chat, a feud, a misunderstanding.
The author introduces the characters and each of the four travels in time to meet someone. In the exchange, they learn something different than what they had first believed and they have the chance to do it over.
The book is smaller than traditional format and translated from the Japanese, a quick 272 pages. The characters’ journeys are interwoven as all journeys whose paths cross and overlap might be, but especially acquaintances who come into regular contact in a small, out-of-the-way cafe.
Why am I sharing this particular topic as my first of the new year? Because the format and the conceit of the book wake us up to the importance of a single interaction. If you think of it, our relationships are built on interactions, the number and quality of them varying, but that number is discrete. That is, each of our relationships in a life boil down to an exact number of interactions or days together.
Let’s say, I had twelve summers with my grandparents and in those summers, we spent long swaths of the days together playing cards, walking by the pond, listening to tall tales on the back porch while eating Nana’s famous baby back ribs. Mathematically speaking there is a fixed number of interactions, or in this relationship, a fixed number of days. For two weeks in summer, a dozen years, so all together maybe 168 days. A letter or two during the year, maybe a phone call. “Grandma’s on the phone!” But, the phone wasn’t the same.
Number one factor in all relationships, do you know what it is? Geography. Digital world aside, because there’s no warmth in hugging a screen. Smart guy, Kawaguchi, with his rules that contain the meeting to the cafe, to one chair, to one cup of coffee. My grandparents have been gone more years than I had known them, but their imprint on me remains immense, far beyond our last meeting. What about the coach I had for one season, or that teacher I had for one semester, or the short exchange with a woman on a train to Rome? Each has an impact and each of them lasting.
The power of one exchange and how we go about our interaction with one person is a lesson from the book.
***SPOILER ALERT***
In one story, the sisters have a strained relationship and the younger sister Kumi often tries to convince Hirai to return home. Hirai has taken to avoiding Kumi and not answering letters. When Hirai goes back in time to see her sister, Kumi is dumbfounded.
“It’s definitely pretty strange today,” Kumi mumbled.
“How so”
“It feels like something we haven’t done in ages. . . just sitting here looking at each other.”
“We haven’t?”
“Oh, come on. Last time I came, I was standing at your front door and you wouldn’t let me in. The time before that you ran away with me chasing after you. Before that, you crossed the street to avoid me, and then before that. . . “
“Pretty awful, wasn’t it?” Hirai agreed.
(Before the Coffee Gets Cold, p. 196)
With no other context, it is apparent that Hirai recognizes the pain she has exacted on Kumi for years. Simply by not avoiding her, by being present, by listening, by seeing her clearly, for the first time in a long long while, the nature of the meeting changes.
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Are there do-overs in real life?
Maybe not like that. Maybe they’re possible, in other ways.
Jason Carter gave his eulogy* and described the former president, who he knew as his grandfather, with humor and love. He said Carter spent 4 years in the governor’s office and 4 years in the oval office, but he lived another 92 years. What an impact he had in his 100 years. Corby had one brief encounter and shared it, the impact of that encounter living on in the retelling, in this letter.
My friend’s brother* died last week. He was a beloved and accomplished man who served the nation in and out of uniform. He is survived by his wife, three children, an extensive network of friends and colleagues. I am not sure if any of them stopped to consider during any of those moments, that it was his last time watching his child’s football game, his last time watching their wrestling match, his last Thanksgiving with his family.
And for any of us and the last interaction with another: the last fight, the last meeting, the last meal, the last embrace, the last kiss. The best moments are often unexpected. And the worst, the kind where the sting transcends the moment, with its regret, remorse, sadness. Are there do-overs?
Maybe the way to consider the impact you have is to know that the interactions you have with each person you know or meet are finite, a fixed number of interactions. And maybe you have only one interaction such as Corby’s chance meeting with Jimmy Carter. When I asked Corby if Carter said anything else to him, he replied:
“Yes for sure. He asked everyone where they were from. I said I lived in Savannah and he said “that’s one of my favorite places in Georgia. “”
There may not be do-overs. So consider that interaction as if it were the only time or the last time. Make it count.
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I first came across the term Ichigo Ichie years ago and it is not mentioned in the book. There is no English equivalent because the meaning with its nuance and significance dates back centuries and draws on deeply held cultural concepts of mindfulness and impermanence.
Ichigo Ichie (一期一会) is a Japanese proverb that emphasizes the importance of cherishing every moment as a unique and unrepeatable experience12. Literally translated as “one time, one meeting,” this concept encourages people to treasure each encounter and experience as if it were a once-in-a-lifetime event16.The phrase originated in the 16th century, stemming from the teachings of tea master Sen no Rikyū16. It gained prominence in Japanese tea ceremonies, where participants are encouraged to treat each gathering as a singular, precious occasion6. (Perplexity.ai with citations)
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FOOTNOTES
*Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Geoffrey Trousselot (Translator) (Hanover Square Press, 2020) 3.68 Goodreads, 536,693 ratings, 74,539 reviews. There are mixed reviews on this book and a lot of them. Criticism is fair but any translation loses something and gains something, not always to the better. Japanese who read this are likely to be familiar with the idea of Ichigo Ichie, as well as other intangibles lost in English, from syntax to cultural references. The eastern ideas of impermanence and filial piety appeal to me, however, because of my own heritage, as a child of East and West, with a Vietnamese mother and American father.
*Jason Carter’s Eulogy given at the Washington National Cathedral. It’s an 11 minute stirring tribute and example of a life well lived, filled with positive and lasting interactions. Excerpts from the article:
“They were small-town people who never forgot who they were and where they were from, no matter what happened in their lives,” he said, adding that his grandfather modeled integrity by being the same person in private and in public.
“He shared the world with me: the power of an atom, the beauty and complexity of a South Georgia forest,” Jason Carter said. “When we fished, he celebrated the majesty of everything from the smallest minnow to that grand circulation of waters.”
In the end, he said, Jimmy Carter’s life was a “love story,” not only with Rosalynn Carter, his wife of 77 years, but also the public he spent a lifetime serving.
*Amit Yoran , my friend’s brother, was a 1993 graduate of West Point and the CEO of Tenable Holdings. He “was the nation’s first Director of the National Cybersecurity Division in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), appointed by President George W. Bush. Amit resided in Great Falls, Virginia with his wife and children. He is survived by his loving family: wife Catherine, children Josh, Hannah, and Zoey, his mother, brothers, and numerous nephews, nieces, and cousins. Amit’s visionary leadership will continue to inspire and guide the cybersecurity community and beyond. His legacy as a caring, dedicated friend will be remembered by all who knew him.”
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