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Where My Wishes and Someone Else's Wishes Meet: The 'Precious Glasses of My Own' I Found Through Self-Awareness

2022年2月1日 14:12

CforC is a program conducted by PIECES to foster local citizenship.
These are the words of the participants who expressed their own changes and wishes through the program.

Citizenship for Children(hereinafter CforC)
is a program to foster local citizenship conducted by PIECES, a certified NPO with a mission to eliminate the isolation of children's hearts. Through the fostering and empowerment of citizenship among those involved in children's daily lives, it creates a foundation for flexible and proactive actions to emerge for children from various backgrounds.

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I am currently participating in the citizenship fostering program Citizen for Children (hereinafter CforC) hosted by the certified NPO PIECES. Like others, I initially signed up for the program after being drawn to the words of senior graduates without fully understanding what it was, and now I am one of those who feel 'I'm glad I participated.' From my perspective, I will write about what it is in CforC that resonates with our hearts.

Participating in the program

CforC programs consist of a set of video lectures (classroom learning) and seminars (practical exercises).

The first session began with a lecture on children's emotional development and attachment formation.
It explained how children interact with society and the people around them to recognize 'who they are.' As a welfare professional, I was already familiar with this, but the participants had diverse backgrounds, and professionals like me were only a fraction of the group. At first, I couldn't imagine how everyone would receive these themes.

However, from the words spoken by everyone in the first seminar, it was gently conveyed that each person was participating in the program while cherishing the 'subject that moves their heart the most'—whether it was the children they work with, their own childhood, their own children, or their relatives' children.

There, job title, age, gender, and whether or not one had parenting experience didn't matter at all. There was a sense of sharing something very comfortable. I remember feeling that this 'something' was a comfortable warmth I hadn't even felt while working.

What I felt as the program progressed

Next, what was a bit surprising was that in CforC, we are strongly encouraged to engage in 'self-awareness' before reaching out to children and the local community.

The ways of feeling, thinking, and behavioral habits we have acquired without realizing it as we live our lives are conveyed to each participant in CforC with the gentle term 'my own glasses.' We realize that it is not only children who struggle and live wondering 'who am I,' but that we adults have also followed the same path to arrive here today.

However, facing one's own heart is sometimes difficult and painful. Even though we professionals are told that 'self-awareness is important first,' we might actually be avoiding it without realizing it. How would people who gathered here by chance overcome such things... I couldn't imagine this either. But in reality, the participants were sometimes confused, laughed together, cried, noticed things in each other, and encouraged one another, and the program proceeded with warmth from beginning to end.

Honestly, I don't know how many times I wondered, 'What is this time that is so much warmer than when professionals gather?' Looking back now, it must have been because of that 'something' everyone shared that I felt at the beginning. And that 'something' might have been the 'existence one wants to love' that each person was trying so hard to cherish. It might be the child in front of you, the child you work with, your younger self, or someone you have yet to meet.

Everyone is different, but they all want to love something or someone with all their might, and I feel that this eventually became our 'common language,' becoming a strength that helped us overcome even the struggles that were hard to put into words.

Facing myself through the program

In such a warm time at CforC, I was once again faced with my own way of being. As someone who has worked as a professional for over 10 years, I have a sense of pride in having honed my expertise while suffering in my own way. But on the other hand, I also realized that the teaching that 'a professional is not a meddlesome neighbor; you must engage with the other party with evidence and provide benefits and value' sometimes tightened my heart.

CforC says that 'demonstrating each person's citizenship' is closer to the question, 'Who are you, and what do you want to do?' And I felt like I was being told that if your wishes and someone else's wishes can meet as they are and join hands, there will surely be a gentle world there. The instructors I met in the

CforC program were each unique, but everyone had an impressive, refreshing demeanor even while worrying or struggling. It seemed as if their work and life, head, body, and heart—the elements that shape them—were maintained in a natural balance.

Especially for me, the talk by Professor Takita of Kyushu University on 'Child-Friendly Town Development' was a session that felt like the release of thoughts I had kept in my heart without being able to put into words for a long time. Living while feeling and receiving something from the town's scenery and views. Not giving something with a strong will, but a gentleness that quietly reminds everyone of the important things they originally possessed. A sense of subtlety.

I was a very lonely child.
I didn't have any special difficulties, but I was a child who spent a lot of time staring blankly at the town with the feeling of being an invisible person who didn't catch anyone's eye.

But I had precious things that I certainly gathered during that time. The sound of the piano played by the lady across the street. The smell of cigarettes drifting from somewhere on Saturdays. The black apron of the lady at the beauty salon next door. The voice of the man at the dry cleaner's saying, 'Welcome home, young lady!' The rice ears swaying in the wind, and the crisp, tense air before it snows. Each of those things protected me even when I lost the home I could return to.

I was a very lonely child, but.
I was kept alive by those fleeting moments of ordinary people living ordinary lives.

Someone's casual gesture or expression, just a single word.
I found precious things in them and made them my own support.

It was like the work of building a 'safe base' that didn't exist anywhere else, inside my own heart.

My wish

And now, I find myself hoping that I, too, can become a part of the townscape that someone else envisions. The town where I live has commercial facilities and a national park near the station; it is a place that retains the peacefulness of the Tama area of Tokyo while still being bustling.

What I like most about it is the scenery—the Big Issue vendor in front of the station, the mendicant monk, the street performers who appear on weekends... the 'people' that anyone living in this town vaguely recognizes. That is the kind of scenery it is.

I thought I might become one of those people, so I started blowing soap bubbles on the street on a whim. There is nothing special about it; I just keep making and playing with soap bubbles in the same spot.

Some people pass by without paying any attention at all, while some children watch intently from afar. Some come up to me and say, 'I want to do it too.' Some don't talk to me or even make eye contact, but they are absorbed in popping the bubbles and leave satisfied. And then there are the adults who occasionally appear and ask, 'May I take a picture?' or those who quietly try to leave a tip. There are so many different people—some friendly, some awkward—and as I think about how everyone is truly unique, I just stay there. If asked what the point of this is, I would honestly be at a loss, but for now, it just feels 'right'—that might be the best way to put it.

I have no strong will, no meaning, and no reason,
and I hold nothing to offer or present from my side.
My only hope is that the way I live, just as I am,
might exist in the corner of the children's field of vision.

They don't have to feel anything there, though perhaps some children might feel something, just as I did back then. Living isn't always about providing benefits or value based on some solid foundation. However, I feel that the sensitivity most important for that child to live is something they likely already possess from the start. The way I approach this may change with the passage of time and the changing scenery of the town, but I want to carry this most important wish with me forever.

No matter what anyone says or thinks,
it is something you have had from the very beginning.
That is the most precious thing of all.
We may only meet and part for a fleeting moment, but please, let me love the most precious thing you have.
That is my wish.

CforC2021Graduate Sayaka Tezuka