“It's not easy being a woman,” said Eriko one evening out of the blue.
I lifted my nose from the magazine I was reading and said, “Huh?”
The beautiful Eriko was watering the plants in front of the terrace before she left for work.
“Because I have a lot of faith in you, I suddenly feel I ought to tell you something. I learned it raising Yuichi. There were many, many difficult times, god knows. If a person wants to stand on her own two feet, I recommend undertaking the care and feeding of something. It could be children, or it could be house plants, you know? By doing that you come to understand your own limitations. That's where it starts.” As if chanting a liturgy, she related to me her philosophy of life.
“Life can be so hard,” I said, moved.
“Yes. But if a person hasn't ever experienced true despair, she grows old never knowing how to evaluate where she is in life; never understanding what joy really is. I'm grateful for it.”
Yoshimoto, B. (2015). Kitchen. Open Road + Grove/Atlantic.