It was June, and my family and I went to Horikiri Shobuen to look at the irises.
It’s not that we like looking at irises. We are not really interested in flower gardens, be they irises, nemophilas, or sunflowers.
However, I think the act of doing a certain thing at a certain time every year and taking pictures of the whole family there is a wonderful thing. It is because we can observe the Okaden family from a fixed point.
I also like that we can talk about the past and the future with our family members based on the memories and photos we have taken. We live in an age of information overload, and our brains are too busy processing the information in front of us. Therefore, I believe we need to consciously create opportunities in our daily lives to reflect on the past and the future.
A regular event in June is iris viewing. Horikiri Shobuen is not a very large place, and admission is free, so it is convenient for a quick visit and a quick return.
As parents, we feel the same way, so our two-year-old son, Takeshi, is even less interested in irises than we are. We would argue about which iris is our favorite, but he would ask me to hold him and silently look at the irises. But Takeh just wants me to hold him and look at the flowers in silence.
It would be cute if he would at least show some mischievous pretense, like running around the park. However, he seemed to have decided that “this is not a place for me to have fun,” and clung to me in energy-saving mode, saying, “Cuddle me! He clung to me in a low-power mode.
He suddenly slipped away from me and ran.I was surprised to see a slide in Horikiri-Shobuen Park, which has a children’s playground.He was suddenly very motivated and ran around laughing, a far cry from the lethargy he had shown earlier.
In Japan, there is an old saying, “Dumplings are better than flowers.It means that people are actually happier with the dumplings they buy under the pretext of a hanami banquet than with the cherry blossoms. The main guest is the opposite of the guest.
Even my 2-year-old son, Take, enjoys playing on the slide more than appreciating the irises. So it is more like a slide than flowers, I thought!I thought.
These memories will be one of the fixed points in our family’s future life.
(2023.06.10)
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