Do Not Enter The Tea Room

Around Christmas 1995 a friend came to visit me in my newly married, presumably happy, life in Michigan. We went to a museum where we saw an exhibit of a Japanese tea room. Outside the display was an attempt to describe this exhibit. It started with something like: “Within the tea room, one feels loneliness which penetrates into the marrow of one’s bones...” and ended with the caution “Please do not enter the tea room”. I laughed out loud. If you don’t get it, you probably should leave.