While writing, I felt like I met my grandfather, who loved grape juice, once again

Recently, whenever I find the time, I have been writing a ZINE (a self-published booklet). It is a precious and first-time challenge that I am creating together with local creators. I am very grateful that they reached out to me.

I am also simply happy to be meeting more creators in Yamaguchi Prefecture and people who are creating spaces locally.

During the day, I work as a writer.

While writing various things, I think about how, in my work as a writer, I write about the experiences of others, such as in interview articles, but in a ZINE, the difference is that I write from my own experiences. Perhaps that is why I feel like I am thinking a bit more about things like, 'How will this come across to someone reading it?'

When writing about other people's episodes, I can naturally capture and write about them objectively, but I feel that is not the case with my own episodes. That is why I often find myself suddenly stopping my pen to think.

However, the words my mother said casually when she came to my house yesterday for the first time in a while helped me relax a little.

During the summer vacation, my mother brought me several frozen foods, saying, 'It must be hard to cook for the family, right?' I am truly, immensely grateful. I fold my hands in my heart, thinking that she must know because she has experienced it herself.

When I casually told my mother that I was making a ZINE, she said, 'Oh, you've always liked writing diaries and things like that, haven't you? Your perspective is interesting, so I think it's a good idea.' I took 'your perspective is interesting' to mean something good.

It is true that I liked writing about ordinary events. Ideas come to me from casual daily conversations, scenery, and events. Even if I call them ideas, they aren't anything special; it's more the image of things I felt or wanted to share.

The ZINE I am writing now has the theme of 'Yamaguchi Prefecture, the region.' At local bookstores, there are also ZINEs written by other people on that theme, and they express the local area in a rich variety of ways. It's interesting.

On the other hand, I might not actually know that much about Yamaguchi Prefecture, where I was born and raised. I realized this as I tried to write about it—you surprisingly don't know things that are close to you.

Therefore, I decided to turn the way my perception of the local area changes as my age and position change into a story in an essay, and I am proceeding with writing it. I am writing exactly how my feelings toward my local Yamaguchi Prefecture have changed from childhood to adulthood.

Perhaps because it becomes a bit more closed when it's a ZINE, I feel like the hurdle for writing about niche place names and episodes is lowered. Since it will be sold locally, I assume local people will be the main readers. This is also fun to write.

I talked about such things with my mother, and I heard about things from my childhood that I had forgotten, what my mother felt about Yamaguchi Prefecture and her hometown of Fukuoka Prefecture, and episodes about my grandfather, who was my mother's father. While thinking that this was an interview for writing the ZINE, I reunited with myself and my grandfather in distant memories.

Among them, I heard an episode from when I was a student and returned to Fukuoka during the Obon holiday, when I went to a buffet with my grandfather, my parents, and my younger sister, and I laughed out loud for the first time in a while. It was about an incident at the restaurant my grandfather introduced to us, saying, 'The grape juice here is delicious!'

The episode is that my grandfather was walking toward his seat after pouring grape juice from the buffet table, but perhaps because he was distracted by the juice in his hand, he mistook the seat and accidentally sat at the table of a different group.

Naturally, the woman sitting in that seat was surprised. (At the time, I was sorry that my grandfather had startled her.)

It's no wonder. An unknown old man suddenly sat down next to her and started happily gulping down grape juice. My younger sister, who found him, immediately shouted, 'Grandpa! It's over here!' and my family and I laughed out loud as my grandfather hurried back to his seat.

I still can't forget the expression on that woman's face when she was a little startled back then, my mother said, laughing heartily. Probably just like back then.

I laughed out loud once again, thinking about how that had happened. Even though I had laughed so much, I also realized that I had somehow forgotten about it.

My grandfather, who ran an izakaya, was usually very sharp, but he also had a side where he would occasionally be a bit absent-minded.

After the laughter that had erupted in the living room across decades finally subsided, my mother murmured deeply, 'You know, even after he passed away, I often think about Dad...' Her words left a strong impression on me.

Maybe it was in a drama or a book. A long time ago, I heard the phrase, 'Even when someone who has died is no longer in front of you, as long as they are remembered, they continue to live on in the hearts of the living.'

I didn't quite grasp the meaning back then. But now, I feel like I understand it a little bit, wondering if it refers to moments like this.

Surely everyone continues to live on in someone's heart. I wonder if what remains then is, after all, their words. I think that is an amazing thing. I'm sure that doesn't just apply to 'great people' or 'extraordinary people'.

I wonder if there are words of my own that others might suddenly remember. If so, it was a day that made me think it would be nice to leave behind good words, along with my actions.

(Though an episode that makes people laugh out loud, like my grandfather's, would be fine too.)

Is it okay to write such trivial episodes in a ZINE? But writing is fun. It feels like me, and even though it should be tiring, it actually gives me energy.

...These are the kinds of things I've been thinking about lately. For now, I'll just enjoy writing.