Encounter with an Anthroposophist

In the Jay St. subway station, a woman who looked like Meryl Streep asked me about the kanji in my tattoo.

She said she recognized some of the radicals in the character. When I told her it meant “mind, thought, or will” she mentioned something about Rudolph Steiner and eurythmics.

I asked her if she was an educator, and she said, “No, I’m an anthroposophist.”

I told her that I had studied a little butoh in Japan, and that one of its major figures (Akira Kasai) had studied eurythmics.

She replied in Japanese, saying that she had lived in Japan for thirteen months.

Only thirteen months? Her speaking was nearly as good as mine, and I was there for eleven years! I told her so.

Still in Japanese, she told me she had the ear of a monkey.

I told her yes, me too, only I always say I am a parrot. “Tensai, desu ne,” I said to her [“You’re a genius.”]

“Domo arigatou,” she answered, not Japanesely denying it…