What a Word I Already Wrote About Still Won't Translate There is a chapter on ma in Peace. It is one of the shortest words in the book and caused me more trouble than any of the others, because every English equivalent I reached for quietly threw something away. 間. Ma. Space, gap, interval, pause, negative space. Each one is defensible. None of them is what I mean when I use the word. Outside Japan, ma usually appears in design writing, explained as a Japanese reverence for e

What I Learned Holding the Brush Myself In Peace, I wrote about a kintsugi bowl. It was in a Kyoto workshop, years ago. A craftsman took it down from the shelf, turned it in his hands, and showed me the gold seam running along an old crack. He said the bowl had taken many tries to find its form. I built a whole chapter around that moment. What I didn't mention is that I had never done it myself. This spring I finally sat down at a workbench in Kyoto with a broken plate in fro