I was invited by Mr. T, with whom I often share meals and who serves extraordinary, freshly brewed coffee with masterful skill, which led me to write this.

 

Through my work as a veterinarian, a field far removed from writing, I have been involved in companion animal medicine for many years. My parents were also veterinarians, and I grew up with animals as a matter of course. As a person belonging to the natural world of this planet, I have a vague "feeling" that I might have something to convey, but beyond that, it's like a landscape of colors in a dream, almost out of focus.

 

In that space, only atmosphere exists. I would like to begin by sharing, with the hope of illuminating a little of that nostalgic world—like the twilight of a winter evening, but never backward-looking—and delivering it to your desks.

 

I believe that people's sensitivity blossoms through living, through working, and through developing an interest in something and actually doing it. In our daily lives, we are moved by our hearts moment by moment, but in the routine of daily life, we cannot continue to feel such things, and we tend to avert our eyes from what we feel in the flow of days.

 

How about viewing the human heart as an instrument that, plucked by the passage of time, continues to play a variety of notes? Surely, there are colorful melodies within. If we can live without leaving our hearts behind, perhaps we can navigate life with gentleness, without stumbling over petty daily dissatisfactions or misfortunes, cherishing ourselves and those close to us.

 

Although I myself have not yet achieved such a way of living, I intend to take up my pen with the thought that by jotting down the moments I have felt, accumulating instances of happiness, things that cause anxiety, matters that I find mysterious, and things understood only by intuition, it may, in a conventional sense, provide a little strength to live and help in accumulating happiness.

 

In my high school memories, I can recall an experience of walking endlessly across a vast plain of pampas grass in the biting cold. It was perpetually bathed in the setting sun, with low mountains behind me. I walked, covered in dirt, my feet sometimes cut by the withered leaves of the pampas grass, under the dazzling light of the orange sun. Ahead, I saw a girl in a kimono and a padded cotton coat, bathed in the sunset against a backdrop of purple clouds.

 

I intuitively knew that the padded coat the girl wore was made by my grandmother, who was born in the Meiji era and doted on me, but I only understood that our relationship was distant. Whether the girl was real is uncertain, but in my memory, I still exist, feeling that I met a very important person on such a pampas grass plain.

 

The pampas grass plain has always been in my heart, but by manifesting it like this, it transforms into something so real that I can perceive my own breathing in the cold and the red blood seeping from the cuts on my feet from the pampas grass. I am profoundly sensing that human beings are born with the supreme happiness of being able to contain multiple worlds, spaces, and moments within themselves.

 

Some might argue that starting a series with such a 'hurrah for humanity' spirit, asserting that a sanctuary exists within us, untouched and undisturbed, is questionable. Nevertheless, I am grateful for your continued companionship.

 

 

Director of Akasaka Animal Hospital. After graduating from the College of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University, she worked in research labs such as the Clinical Pathology Laboratory at Nihon Veterinary and Zootechnical University before becoming director of her current hospital in 2016. As the third-generation director, following her father and mother, she promotes companion animal medicine and veterinary care centered on the "Human-Animal Bond." Her specialties include internal medicine, general surgery, and regenerative medicine. She has also served as a former member of the Veterinary Affairs Council of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and as a part-time lecturer in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at the College of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University. She is dedicated to social contribution through veterinary medicine, including support for the coexistence of the elderly and animals, and animal therapy activities, with the lifelong theme of "creating a society where people and animals can live happily."