The longer you boil it, the sweeter it gets

Me at 6 years old

I went up and down the stairs of our two-story wooden house over and over again. I waited alone for my little sister to arrive, watching the neighbor's cat walk along the garden fence. My newborn sister was small and cute. But I couldn't feel happy.

Mom is always holding my sister. She always calls me by my name without any honorifics, but she adds "-chan" when she talks to my sister. She smiles at my sister, but she is cold to me. When I said, "Put her back in your tummy," Mom just giggled. Mom is always like that. Even when it's not a laughing matter.

Even when I lined up all the stuffed animals in the house, or used a toilet paper roll as a microphone to sing my favorite songs, I just felt bored. Even the time at nursery school felt boring. After waking up from my nap and finishing my snack, I would press my face against the window, waiting for Grandma to come early.

At some point, Grandma started giving me snacks and fruit in secret. She would take me alone to pick mugwort along the river. When she found a patch of water dropwort, she looked happy in a way I had never seen before.

Grandma doesn't usually talk much, and she doesn't smile often. She doesn't treat me like a little child. But I know she isn't a cold person. Because whenever I had a stomachache, she would worry and immediately give me Seirogan.

We picked houttuynia cordata while complaining about the smell, but after drying it out completely, roasting it, and boiling it, it gave off a faintly sweet scent.

A basket full of picked flowers and grasses. The scenery of the riverbank we saw together. The hand I couldn't reach on the slope. I remember it when spring comes.

🌿

Me at 14 years old

Grandma, who had always been with me, was gone. I lay by the window in the tatami room where Grandma's futon used to be laid out, playing the same songs over and over. There were days I couldn't even move.

I don't understand why everyone in my class is laughing so happily. No one cares about the things I'm worried about. It's like they can't even see them.

I went to club activities, swung my racket, and ran around. The time I spend thinking only about hitting the ball is fun. My teammates' arms and legs are all tanned dark. The Pocari Sweat we drink after practicing until our throats are parched tastes so good.

Grandma had liver cancer. She lost her parents when she was young, and a few years before her cancer was discovered, she lost her eldest son. After my uncle passed away, Grandma often called my father by my uncle's name. No one told her she was mistaken.

🎾

Me at 18 years old

I could have advanced to the affiliated university, but I chose to take the general entrance exams. I decided to study for ten hours every day and kept at it without fail. The tattered English vocabulary book I always carried with me. The textbook full of notes and sticky tabs. All of them had darkened, rounded corners.

In the back of my desk drawer is the hand towel Grandma gave me when I was taking my junior high school entrance exams. The writing is full of mistakes. Words written for me by Grandma, who never got to go to school.

Most of the kids in my class had their paths decided, and there was a time when I couldn't go to school. My family and teachers grilled me, and I had no one on my side. Every night, I sat at my desk in my cold room. Even with the heater on, my toes were freezing. It was so quiet outside, I felt like there was no one else in the world.

When I went down to the living room for a midnight snack, I would sometimes run into my father coming home from his night shift. "Still at it?" he would say. Even when he spoke to me, I wouldn't say anything back. I didn't know what to say. I would go back to my room and imagine the night road my father traveled when he came home at this hour.

The day I first went to see the university. The view from the train window the moment we crossed the big river. The water surface, illuminated by the winter light, was sparkling.

I didn't get into my first-choice university. But now, I am grateful for that. Because by going to my second-choice university, I met someone who gave me the words I had been longing to hear for the first time.

I still keep my English vocabulary book like a medal.

📚

Me at 22

Even though I got a job at my dream company, I somehow always feel out of place. The beautiful glass-walled office building and the stylish office scenery feel like a world that has nothing to do with me.

Lunch with people from my department and endless phone calls. Everything that the people around me do so naturally is a struggle for me.

I put on heels, wear nice clothes, and head to the office. I look away from my reflection in the convenience store window. I've been yelled at over the phone, and there were days I couldn't go home until late because I had to take over the work of a senior colleague who was out because their child had a fever. Whenever someone was irritated, I felt as tired as if it were my own problem.

Sometimes, I would go into a nearby diner alone for lunch. After quietly checking from the entrance that no one from my department was there. Tomato pasta with plenty of bacon, and a cafe au lait carefully made after I finished eating. A gerbera daisy decorated in a small bottle on the table. I could feel a little relieved. Maybe Grandma liked having time to drink tea alone like this, too.

If there is someone in the break room, I turn back even if I don't have any business there, and I'd rather take the stairs than ride the elevator alone with someone. The habits I've had since I was little have only increased since I started working. But I still don't really understand what this is.

🍝

Me at 27

I started living away from my parents' home for the first time. The view of the mountains from the window. The scent of greenery that rushes in after the rain. The clear air, different from Tokyo. Even though this should have been a happy newlywed life, for some reason I felt lonely, and I cried every night in front of the orchid pot I brought from Tokyo.

One day, my aunt in Fukushima sent me a cardboard box full of vegetables. The nostalgic smell of soil remaining in the box, and a small spider that crawled out from the newspaper wrapping the Chinese cabbage. Smelling the soil reminds me of the riverbank I used to go to with Grandma. Feeling like I was told I wasn't alone, I cried so hard I couldn't stand for a while. That winter, the orchid withered. Perhaps it had absorbed my sadness.

My husband called my weakness cute and always stayed by my side, smiling. He caught me crying in front of the orchid just once. Even though he should have already had dinner out, he said, "Let's go eat yakitori near the station." It was our first time at an izakaya at night in a long while.

And yet, I thought I shouldn't rely on him.

The following year, a healthy baby was born. The cry I heard from the nursery was the loudest of them all. To think that such a lively child would be born to me. Both the baby and I were desperate just to survive each day.

🍼

Me at 32

Raising children had been my dream since I was little. But the hardships of parenting were beyond anything I had imagined. After my second child was born, my body grew weak, and I started catching colds easily. I couldn't even eat my favorite fried foods or have vanilla ice cream at night because they would give me a stomachache.

No matter how tired I am, or how little sleep I've had, morning comes again, and the children wake up. I find myself thinking—though I never actually do it—how much easier it would be to just throw it all away and disappear.

Grandma, who grew up after the war without being able to go to school, took care of her younger siblings, raised her own children, and eventually had to say goodbye to her eldest son. I wonder how great her hardships must have been. As I wash the dishes and hang out the laundry, I try to overlay my own hands with the memory of Grandma's hands.

At dusk, I often walked the path to the station with my little daughter. The sunset sinking behind the mountains across the tracks was huge. I would desperately chase after her small back as she tried to let go of my hand and run off somewhere.

While my daughter was sleeping, I would devour books. I finally found the reason why I had always found it so difficult to interact with people. Oh, I see, it was fine for me to just be myself. I like time alone, and I still don't like crowded places. Even so, I know now that I am happy.

No one ever spoke about Grandma or my uncle. But children are different. When I cry while reading a book, they ask, "Mom, why are you crying?" When I explain, they keep asking, "But why?" and "Why is that?" until they are satisfied. As I explain the reasons for my sadness in detail, it gradually starts to feel absurd, and I end up laughing. With that straightforwardness, my heart slowly began to unravel.

Perhaps the blood of Grandma, who rarely laughed, stopped with me.

🌄

Me now

While writing this, I realized that I had forgotten the sound of Grandma's voice. Even though we were together so much, we didn't exchange many words. But, it was still a shock.
But, it was still a shock.

I once read in a book that the liver is the organ that stores anger. Was Grandma actually angry? Somehow, I feel like I can understand that a little.

Two nights after I finished writing this, Grandma appeared in my dream. I was able to hear her voice for the first time in a long while.

We used to pick dokudami together, complaining about how smelly it was. When we dried it, roasted it, and simmered it slowly, it gave off a faintly sweet scent. There are scents that can only be felt by taking the time and effort.

That weekend, my family went to visit our ancestors' graves, which we hadn't visited in a while. When we arrived in front of the grave, the children started arguing loudly as usual, saying, "I want to arrange the flowers," and "I want to hold the incense."

Grandma, I'm doing my best.
Please come visit me in my dreams sometimes.

Even though I was just making a request, tears came to my eyes.

Today, too, I get to know myself by writing.

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