The garden was alive with butterflies, ants, ladybugs and pill bugs. Spiders made huge webs sparkled with dewdrops. Occasionally, praying mantes and cicadas visited the garden as well. After the rain, I often found frogs and slugs, sometimes snails. Warblers and sparrows would sing on the branches of the pine tree. Next to the pine …
"The place I like best in this world is the kitchen." Banana Yoshimoto wrote in her novel Kitchen. In my case, the place I feel most attached to is the garden of my old house. The house which I used to live when I was a kid stood in the middle of a foothill. The …
When I was 17 years old, I wrote my first play. I was a drama course student in high school. Every year senior students put on a show as a final project before graduation. All members of the class, 40 of us, had to be cast in the same show. Also, each one of us …
It’s been almost a year since I lost my grandma. I am writing this anecdote so as not to forget an incident that taught me a good lesson. It happened one night when I was living with her. On the eve of my trip to Okinawa, a beach resort in southern part of Japan. I …
Finding another lift was tough. I talked to 15 people or more, but all of them refused to give me a ride. Most of them showed compassion on me excusing they are heading to other places, but some of them looked at me as if I were a beggar. (Technically, I was a beggar asking …
As we arrived at Numazu Interchange, he got off the car and told me to remain in the car. I started to regret what I have initiated. Now it seemed not at all a good idea for a woman to hitch. I thought I knew the risks of hitchhiking, but being picked up by a …
On a summer night in 2004, I was standing on the roadside in Tokyo to hitch. In hindsight, I think I was too naïve to believe a woman in her early 20s can hitch to travel more than 500 kilometres (300 miles). But back then I really wanted to try something out of ordinary, to …
It is difficult for me to write about him. We have never been that close, though we never argued or had a fight. I can't easily describe the relationship we had. He wasn't really what I would call 'family'. We weren't friends nor flatmates. He was my mother's partner after she divorced my dad. They …
It was the early summer of 1995. I was 13 years old, and one rock band blew my mind. In the first semester of my freshman year of junior high school, I was assigned as the “School Broadcaster”. That position was a privilege. I felt like a DJ at a radio station. My role was …
What is your first memory? My sister says she remembers things from the age of 2. I, on the other hand, don’t remember anything earlier than kindergarten. I think my earliest memory would be from when I was around 5 years old. I was standing at the bottom of the staircase in my house, looking …
A Thousand Years 