It was an ordinary autumn day in 2012, but I still remember every detail of it as if it happened yesterday.
Waking before dawn with the feet of my third son and namesake, Peadar,[1] in my face, I pushed myself out of the futon, and groped through the darkness as I made my way into the kitchen. There, I brewed myself a pot of tea, which I then carried to my shosai, that is, my study,[2] and wrote as I often do for the next two and a half hours until I could hear the sound of lights being switched on, followed by the sound of Peadar’s small footsteps coming down the hallway.
“Daddy, hold me.”
It seems the boy can’t sleep properly if he hasn’t got at least one leg propped up on my head. Peadar climbed up onto my lap; nestled his face in my chest.
“What are you doing?” came the muffled question.
“I’m trying to write.”
“Why?”
“Good question: why.”
“Why, Daddy?”
“I don’t know. OCD?”
“ABC?”
“Yes, ABC.”
Peadar began to sing the “ABC Song”, his face still in my chest, but when he came to the letter P, he paused, looked up at me and said, “Daddy, pee!”
It was too late, though. His already full diaper could hold no more, and warm urine dribbled out and all over my lap.
“I peed, Daddy!”
“You certainly did. C’mon, let’s jump in the shower and wash up.”
“No! Bath!”
“You want to take a bath?”
“Yes.”
“Alright.”
“With bubbles!”
“You want a bubble bath?”
“Yes.”
And so, I carried little Peadar, “P2”, to the bathroom, where I set up large basin, filled it with bubbles and let the boy soak while I took a shower.
A few minutes later, my second son, Eóin,[3] popped his head into the bathroom and announced: “I gotta poo!”
“So, poo for chrissakes!” I said, and the five-year-old scampered off to the W.C.[4]
He returned a few minutes later, butt-naked and stinking to high heaven, and announced that he now wanted me to wash him. Our “washlet”[5] had been on the fritz for some time and all three boys were now in the habit of showering off after doing their Daybreak Number Two.
“Eóin,” I said, “you are amassing a mountain of butt-washing debt which will eventually have to be repaid. With interest!”
“Huh?”
“In twenty years’ time, perhaps less, Eóin, you will be washing Daddy’s bottom.”
“Eh!?!?!? Today?!”
“No, not today. But someday.”
With muted reluctance, Eóin stepped inside.
Before long, my oldest boy, Micheál,[6] also joined us in the crowded shower. You could run the trains on the boy’s bowel movements. It was then as the three of us fought for a place under the stream of hot water that it occurred to me that the key to happiness was rather simple: having more testicles in your life.
After breakfast with my family, I dressed and left for work.
I don’t know many people who enjoy their commute, but I do. That time, like the early morning hours before my sons wake, is all mine. Although it takes much longer than the train, I almost always take a bus. It is less crowded as it swims against the rush-hour current, allowing me forty minutes of quiet time for reading and making notes and cleaning up what I had written earlier in the morning before one of my sons disturbed me to announce a bodily function.
As the bus tootled along that morning, I was thinking about an upcoming trip to Kanazawa City on the Sea of Japan coast. It had been over a year since I had last been to the remote region and was eager to return.
Now, the reason I remember all that so clearly is that when I arrived at work, there was a lovely young woman about twenty years of age with shoulder-length auburn hair standing before my office door: that was you, of course.
Tall for the Japanese, at one-hundred and sixty-eight or nine centimeters, and wearing maroon Doc Martens, the young woman towered over my older colleague, the diminutive Professor Konoha, who was absentmindedly meandering the hall, muttering indistinctly to himself.[7]
She looked at the professor and suppressed a giggle. Noticing me approach, however, her posture straightened. She took a step in my direction, and, after introducing herself in a clear, confident voice, bowed smartly.
“Hajimemashite, Sawajiri Kana des’.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Sawajiri Kana,” I replied in Japanese. “Sawajiri Kana. Kana Sawajiri . . . Kanasawaji . . . Kanazawa-shi . . .”
“Pardon me?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just that I was thinking of Kanazawa City on my way here. Quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
“A coincidence?”
“Your name. Kana Sawajiri and the city’s name, Kanazawa-shi. You wouldn’t happen to be from Ishikawa, would you?”
“From Kanazawa? No. No, I’m from here, from Fukuoka. Born and bred.”
“I see. Never mind, then. Spend too much time at this university and you start going batty like Sensei over there.”
And then you laughed and when your face softened you really were quite charming.
“So, how can I help you, Sawajiri-kun?” I said as I unlocked the door to my office.
Stepping into my office, you explained that the professor whose seminar you were intending to take in the coming school year was going to be away on sabbatical and you were now looking for an alternative seminar. We chatted about options, what would be required of you if you did, indeed, take mine, and after a moment’s thought you made your decision. There was no hemming and hawing the way so many Japanese are disposed to do. I immediately liked that about you.
“Well, then, I look forward to seeing you next term,” I said and held out my hand, but you bowed deeply instead and gave the formal greeting:
“Yoroshiku onegaishimasu.”
“By the way,” I said. “I like your shoes.”
“My shoes?” you said, brushing your hair behind your right ear to look.
“Your Martens. We’re wearing the same brand and color.”
“We are, aren’t we, Sensei! I hadn’t notice.”
“You’ve got good taste, Sawajiri-kun.”
And that is how we first met. Had professor Yamanaka not been going on sabbatical the following year, we may never have gotten to know each other. And none of this may have ever happened.
