I Thought Typhoons Had Families
When I was in elementary school.
I always thought that 'taifu ikka' (clear weather after a typhoon) was
a typhoon family.
I had no doubts about it.
Adults would say on the news,
'The weather has cleared up after the typhoon.'
Every time I heard that,
in my head,
a typhoon father,
a typhoon mother,
and typhoon children
would all troop past.
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Of course,
no one ever explained it that way.
But children
build their world through sound.
Ikka (passing).
Ikka (family).
Before meaning,
the ears take the lead.
That is why
I thought typhoons didn't come alone.
They come as a family.
Maybe there are relatives, too.
Perhaps
the strongest one is the father typhoon,
and the slightly weaker child typhoons follow behind.
With that feeling,
I was satisfied with my own interpretation.
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A child's misunderstanding is not a mistake.
They are simply supplementing the world with the words they already know.
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I understand now.
The phrase 'taifu ikka' (after a typhoon) means
that after a typhoon has passed,
the sky clears up.
As a definition,
it is very ordinary.
But,
to my elementary school self,
rather than that phrase,
Typhoon Family was much more powerful.
Because,
it conjured up an image.
A father who is strong like the wind.
A mother who brings the rain.
Children who run around whooshing by.
The whole family passing through town,
and finally leaving only clear skies behind as they go home.
Thinking of it that way,
it actually made a bit of sense.
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When you become an adult,
you learn the correct words.
You know the meaning.
You understand the kanji.
You can go back to the dictionary.
But,
as things become correct,
those strange scenes fade away.
Typhoon Family.
Thinking about it now,
it is completely wrong.
But,
in my head back then,
it truly existed.
And what's more,
it had a strange sense of domestic life.
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There are scenes that remain only within the words we got wrong.
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Perhaps,
everyone has misunderstandings like this.
Someone who thought a corruption scandal was
a meal voucher.
Someone who thought a monthly parking lot was
a major landowner named Mr. Tsukigime.
Someone who thought a transparent expressway was
a road that was actually transparent.
Words,
the moment they enter a child's ears,
create a different world.
And only the person themselves
lives normally in that world for years.
Until someone corrects them,
without a single doubt.
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The 'typhoon family' was
like that too.
It was a mistake.
But,
it wasn't just a mistake.
That was
a memory from back when I believed in the shape of sounds
more than the meaning of words.
Before the correctness adults speak of,
it was a small story
that rose up on its own inside a child.
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It is not only correct words that remain in our memories.
The words we believed in while being wrong are the ones that come back to make us laugh later.
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Even now,
when I hear 'taifu ikka' (typhoon passing),
I think for just a moment.
Ah.
Maybe they came as a family,
and left as a family.
There is no way that is true.
Though they aren't.
Just a little bit,
I feel like it might have been better if that were the case.
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©︎2026 Nasu Takako
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