Finding My Voice（7）　　　　　　　　　　　The Path We Walked【6】

In the late stage of my pregnancy, I was hospitalized at the maternity clinic due to the risk of a threatened miscarriage. I was assigned to a two-person room, and the other patient was also an expectant mother. She told me that although her family lived in that town and she had returned to stay with her mother, she ended up in this hospital because of the same condition.

We naturally began chatting with each other. It was all very trivial talk—for instance, how one nurse’s injections were painful, or how refreshing it felt when another nurse washed our hair. She also shared a story about how, for some reason, a drunk foreigner was once sleeping in her family's front yard. A large number of foreign residents lived in that town, and I listened to her, finding it quite amusing.

During my stay, I didn't feel relieved to be temporarily freed from housework or family responsibilities. Looking back now, I think I was able to spend peaceful days in that hospital room, largely thanks to her gentle presence. Her mother visited from time to time, and she too was very serene; her deep care for her daughter was clearly conveyed through her tone of voice and actions. When her family was visiting, I would draw the curtain separating our beds to respect each other's privacy.

When her family was there, or during the time I spent alone, I read books. Without fully understanding it, I stretched myself to read Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain. I don’t remember why I chose that particular book, only that it was one volume from a collection of world literature I had brought from my parents' house.

Looking back now, there was a strange contrast in choosing that book. I was hospitalized to nurture a new life, while the young man in the novel suffered from tuberculosis and spent his days in a sanatorium. I don't remember much of the plot. I suppose part of me just wanted to read it out of a naive desire to engage with a classic.

I had read many books since I was a young girl. I cannot put into words precisely what I gained from them. However, as I grew up, I began to realize that there might be a limit to the knowledge and learning one can acquire solely from books.

There is a book I have never picked up to this day: Shuji Terayama’s Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets. Just hearing this title made me feel as though I was someone who did nothing but read, had little interaction with people, and lacked real-life experiences. At the time, I even felt a sense of resistance. I suppose somewhere deep down, I felt that even if I read books, I wouldn't be able to take action as a mere student. In those days, I spent my student life quietly alongside gentle, quiet friends who were much like myself.

My older brother, on the other hand, read various books while interacting deeply with people from diverse backgrounds. Even as a high school student, he would get into huge arguments with our parents and teachers, or sneak out of the house in the middle of the night, prompting the police to contact our parents. He played the guitar, repeatedly forming and breaking up bands.

Back then, I thought I disliked my brother. Working hard at my studies, I couldn't bring myself to say I loved a brother who blared his electric guitar without a second thought. I was an obedient daughter to our parents—a dull girl with no particular individuality—while my brother possessed a sharp, edgy sensibility. His way of living was chaotic. Even so, he was a person who lived with a clear sense of his own core. Today, I find myself envying that way of life just a little.

Even at an age where I was carrying a child, I had still barely experienced anything that would truly shake my sense of values. At this moment, I could not have imagined that I would soon face layer upon layer of vivid, raw experiences that I had never wished for.

Next Story

First Story: Finding My Voice（１）　　　　　　　Introduction｜Cristal

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