Ed’s Note
I once dated a guy whose mother had a coffin in the garage. According to my boyfriend, she would sleep in it regularly. He took a lot of pleasure in the telling of these family facts. It was in the discovery phase of the relationship, and I was still a semi-mortal (having had a brush or two with the death of the near and dear but still not quite believing that it was my own destiny), so I viewed this parental eccentricity with a suitable level of dispassion and some judgment. What else was lurking in their psychic makeup? Was his father strung up in a sling hanging upside down from the ceiling in the same garage? Had I inadvertently started dating the spawn of vampires? Was this really a thing in Parkview? The relationship did not survive long after the revelation.
It transpires his mother was onto something. Regular coffin visitations are now big in Japan. Mikako Fuse, owner of Grave Tokyo, has brought manga and kawaii (cute) to the sombre funerary urns and caskets of yore. For a very reasonable fee of about R200 for half an hour, you can rest, listen to music, meditate, or simply nap in the open or closed casket of your choice. Fuse says it’s a remarkably peaceful experience and people emerge with a renewed zest for life or, at the very least, less suicidal ideation, which is a real problem in Japan. Especially with the youth.
So now you can pop down to a participating funeral home or shopping mall and take 30 minutes to reconcile with eternity in an admittedly rather delightful if slightly gaudy casket.
The Buddha was quite clear about how often you should contemplate your impending death. He was having a meal with his students and asked them for their thoughts. One suggested you could be dead tomorrow; a second, that you could not make it through the night; a third upped the ante and said they could all drop dead after this meal. Ratcheting things up in the manner of suck-ups everywhere, the next one suggested that you could expire after the next bite, and the last student, not to be outdone, said you could die before you even took the next bite. The Buddha, in an unusual display of preference, said these last two answers were the correct ones — you could unceremoniously kick the bucket just like that.
Sometimes a brush with death can have a fortifying effect on your grip on life. The people reporting from the outer reaches of that final shore — who die on operating tables and accident scenes all over the world and then are miraculously revived — almost unanimously say that, despite realising it was not so bad afterwards, what with the sightings of long-lost family members and the warm, fuzzy sensation of being at one with the universe (however that manifested for them individually), it was a rather lovely thing to return to this life, to find themselves back in the here and now.
They realised how sweet this world can be, full of colours, sounds, sensations, friends, family, lovers, mystery, purposeful work, tall cappuccinos, and Netflix.
The antidote to despair must surely be the small, daily joys and wonders that come your way without too much effort on your part. The firm squeeze of a good hug, a walk in the park, sourdough bread, heirloom tomatoes, well-designed things that work, and quite possibly a lovely coffin, lined with pink silk and lots of plastic flowers, so you can practise eternity to finally remember you must take pleasure in the here and now. Powerful stuff.
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Aspasia
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