The First Trigger

　When I enter the mode of 'I'm going to create, I'm going to give birth,' antennas sprout from my head, and the thin veil I was wearing is blown away by the wind. My sensitivity becomes exposed, and information I want and things I don't both strike me with equal intensity. For the first time in a while, I am experiencing the feeling of being exposed, naked and with bare eyes, to a wind full of sand and dust. Gritty and stinging. Looking back, I realize that part of the reason I stayed holed up was that I found this painful and scary. As it turns out, I got used to it in about two days.　
　Output requires input, and conversely, having good input makes you want to put something out. Something is extracted through my own filter. Even in simple chatter, saying 'Listen, listen' or 'Look, look' is a form of self-expression.　
　I had been vaguely thinking about holding a reading event since I returned to Otsu. There were several triggers for it to take concrete shape this time, and one of them was the exhibition I used for the header photo of this article, the Exciting Hair Ornament exhibition. The pink flyer caught my eye in the Kyoto City Subway station. First of all, I love intricate craftsmanship. And the objects were 'combs' woven together with the passions of women and the obsession of artisans. It was exactly to my taste, and for the first time in a while, I visited an art museum.

　My intuition in times like these is never wrong. I spent the whole day absorbed in the exhibition of combs, hairpins, hair ornaments, inro cases, and other items. The skill and brilliance of the craftsmanship were outstanding, and I was deeply satisfied to be able to feel the history the objects had passed through and even the lives of the people who owned them. It wasn't just satisfaction. This visit was the initial trigger that lit a blazing fire under the desire to express myself that had been smoldering away.　
　The collection that forms the basis of the exhibition was gathered by Ms. Tomoyo Okazaki, who worked as a geisha in Gion and later became a successful restaurant proprietress in Tokyo, and there is a novel based on her life, Korin's Comb by Yoshiko Shibaki. She was an author who appeared on the literary scene after winning the Akutagawa Prize in 1942, and because of her own refined nature, she was called a 'housewife writer' for better or worse. It is said that Fumiko Hayashi, her senior, once told her, 'You people just walk easily along the path that we opened up while covered in blood.'　
　Showa-era novels are good. The amount of information conveyed through the prose is dense, allowing you to immerse yourself in that world and travel to a different world within your brain. This work is exactly like that, and when I tried reading it aloud during practice, the world described in the book stood out even more than when reading silently. At the reading event, I will read about 15 minutes of the beginning of the novel. Although it is a short excerpt, it is a part that carefully records the state of mind of the collector and the way of life of a woman born in the flower district. I want to output the vividness of that breathing so that it reaches the audience.　
　Since the author has not been dead for 50 years, a copyright application was necessary, and I was able to obtain permission from the copyright successor without any issues. I will record this story as well in a future post. Please look forward to it.