What a Client Told Me After Two Years

Today, a client came to see me for the first time in a long while.

It had probably been about two years.

After the session was over, they said,

“Matsuoka-sensei, you’ve powered up.”

I had no particular sense that I had powered up.

But when they said that, I realized that quite a lot has happened over the past year or two.

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I never imagined I would move from an apartment in Nakameguro to Chiba.

I also never imagined I would end up living with my father-in-law.

To live every day in the same house with someone I had never lived with before.

That was a fairly big change.

Of course, it has not all been easy.

There are things to be careful about.

Our rhythms of life are different.

But through those ordinary days, I do feel that something in me has been strengthened a little.

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Our house now has a shrine on the right side and a temple on the left.

It is a rather unusual place to live.

At first, it felt a little strange.

But as I continued living there, I began to feel that my body could rest there.

Before, I probably visited a shrine once or twice a year.

Now, I visit the shrine next door almost every week.

Last March, my mother-in-law passed away.

Since then, I have offered incense at her altar every day.

And on her monthly memorial day, my father-in-law brings flowers to her grave next door.

The lives of the living are right beside the presence of those who have died.

Over these past one or two years, life and death have felt much closer than before.

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Another big thing has been the hot spring.

About ten minutes away by car, there is a day-use hot spring with water flowing directly from the source.

Recently, I go there about three times a week.

I get in the car alone, soak in the hot spring, and do nothing.

That is all.

But because I have that time, I feel something deep in my body slowly returning.

When I lived in Tokyo, it was not easy to have that kind of time.

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We did not come to Chiba with a clear intention.

It was less something we chose, and more something that happened through the flow of life.

But in the end, I think it was very good.

For my family.

For myself.

For KaradaNaoru.

Today, because of what a client said after two years, I noticed it for the first time.

Without realizing it, perhaps I had changed a little.

I do not know if “powered up” is the right word.

But living with my father-in-law,

the house between a shrine and a temple,

the daily incense for my mother-in-law,

and the time I spend going to the hot spring,

all of these things have been changing me, little by little.