Every year over the new year holiday, at some point, my mother would say it was time.

Time to stop playing with my cousins. Time to sit down, lay out the mat, prepare the ink, and write. 書初め — kakizome, the first calligraphy of the year. We had been given a word or phrase at school before the winter break, and it had to be done before we went back on the first day of January.

I did not enjoy it. I will be honest about that. I was a child with cousins nearby and the holiday still going, and I had to sit still and make brush strokes that never looked the way I wanted them to. My kakizome was never particularly good. I knew it, and I think my mother knew it too, though she never said so.

What kakizome actually is

書初め is the first calligraphy written in the new year, traditionally on January 2nd. The date is significant — in the old Japanese calendar, January 2nd was considered the first proper working day of the year, a moment to begin things with care and intention. Writing on that day was thought to determine the quality of your calligraphy for the whole year ahead.

The word or phrase chosen for kakizome matters. Students are typically given something that carries meaning for the new year — a wish, a virtue, a seasonal word. The writing itself is an act of setting intention: this is what I am bringing into the year. This is the shape I want it to take.

It belongs to the tradition of 書道, shodō — the way of calligraphy — which you can read more about here: 道 — The Way.

The walls covered in January

What I remember most clearly is not my own kakizome but the classroom in the first week back at school. The walls would be covered with everyone's work — rows of large sheets, each with a word or phrase written in brushwork that ranged from tentative to surprisingly confident. Some children had clearly practiced a great deal. Others had clearly been in the same situation as me.

There was something equalizing about it. Everyone's first attempt of the year, displayed together, imperfect and honest. The point was never to produce a masterpiece. It was to begin.

What I understand now

I wish I had taken it more seriously. Not because my calligraphy would necessarily be better today — I suspect I am not naturally gifted — but because I understand now what the practice was trying to teach.

Kakizome is about the quality of beginning. The brush strokes you make on January 2nd are not meant to be perfect. They are meant to be present — deliberate, attentive, made with the whole of your focus on this one word, this one moment, the first of the year.

It is harder than it sounds. Sitting still. Preparing carefully. Making one thing well rather than rushing to be done with it.

Those cousins and I still gather at new year. The holiday still moves too fast. But somewhere in the middle of it now, I find myself thinking about the mat, and the ink, and the word I would choose if I were sitting down to write.

I have not decided yet what that word would be. That might be its own kind of beginning.