Tied

When I moved to Japan almost exactly a year ago, I wasn't scared of moving to a new country. I wasn't scared of being on a continent I'd never visited before, and I wasn't scared of being on my own. I wasn't scared about the fact that I didn't speak a word of the language, or understand the culture, or like the food; I wasn't worried about the fact that I had no job, and no house, and no money, and no friends. I wasn't scared that I was moving 10,000 miles just to be with a man I loved, and I wasn't even scared about starting a new career in a subject I knew nothing about.

No: I was scared of the children.

Children have always frightened me. Not in a off-key, chanty way - the background music of horror films - but in a we're very small and you don't know what we're thinking way. In a we laugh and cry for no reason at all way. In a we see straight through you and all your talk: you're not a proper adult, are you way. They look at you from somewhere down on the floor, and they make judgements and assessments quicker - and often more accurate - than any adult. They know if you're faking it: they know if you don't mean what you say. Like dogs, they can sense if you're scared and hoping they'll go away soon. And thus there has always been a mutually icy wall between me and small people: aided, no doubt, by the fact that - even as a child - I refused to speak to other children. It could be argued, in fact, that I've never liked children, even when I was one.

"I'm getting my tubes tied," I told my mum years ago. Or, perhaps I should say: demanded of my mum.
"You're... what?"
"I'm getting my tubes tied. I'd like my tubes tied now, please."
"You... You should think about it, Holly. For a long time. Do you even know what it means?"
"Yes. It means no babies. Ever. I'd like it done as soon as possible."
"Right. Okay. Perhaps we'll have this discussion in a few years, then. See if you still feel the same way."
"I will," I said. "Don't worry about that."

I was eight years old at the time.

In the twenty years that followed, I saw nothing to make me change my mind. If tying my tubes was no longer at the forefront of my mind, it was simply because the opposite had never been an issue. No baby talks had been had: no loving "what do you think of these names, darling" conversations had either been introduced or participated in. No maternal yearnings after pink blankets; no stroking little mittens in Mothercare and regarding the fat women - and they were just fat women, in my eyes - with outraged jealousy. No strange stalking of prams around parks. Nothing. Nada. My tubes didn't need tying, simply because I had forgotten they were there.

So it's safe to say that - when I was introduced to five 1-3 year olds in August of last year - I wasn't very impressed. And, when they all started screaming and kicking walls and sobbing on the carpet, I was even less so. I believe I spent at least a third of the first five or so lessons in the toilet, wailing into the bottom of my jumper and hoping that when I got back into the class they'd have stormed themselves to sleep.

Nudge by nudge, kick by kick, block by block, however, they all won me over. As anyone who reads this blog knows, Kou, Kanata, Shion, Shinnosuke and Tensho refused to be disliked, and - with every hour of their strange, cunning, crazy little persons - I loved them more and more. Kou with his spikes and his tantrums and his kindness; Kanata with his strange, silent dancing and his block-banging; Shion with her Minnie Mouse outfit and her incredibly organised cookie eating; Shinnosuke and his hugs and tearful bravery; Tensho and his perfect first words in either Japanese or English, copying my accent and facial expression ("No running!"). I loved each and every one of them: looked forward to whatever fresh hell or pleasure the morning would bring. Delighted, even when tired, at their joy in a new set of cookies, and at the enthusiasm with which they fed imaginary elephants or flew imaginary planes; even enjoyed their terrible moods (there's nothing quite as entertaining as watching a three year old punch a two year old and then scream blue murder until he gets "the ice rabbit" to put on an imaginary bruise).

And, when I left - as anyone who reads this blog knows - I cried my eyes out. Cried and cried, and had to be comforted by a small, fierce group of toddlers.

I've stayed in contact with one of the mums: a mum who I thought knew no English, and who revealed herself in the last lesson to be perfectly fluent. We exchange emails now and then; she tells me how Tensho is doing, and how Kanata is growing up, and how big Shion is now. And, with every email, she eagerly invites me to come and see them all in Yokohama.

I would love to, I told her in my last email. And I will, when I'm there next Spring. But it will be for me, more than anything else. I'm sure they don't remember me at all. Tensho was still a one year old when I left.

He remembers you, she emailed back. They all remember you. Tensho told me he wants to see you himself. Kanata still calls school "Holly's House." Shion talks about presents for you when she goes shopping. Shinnosuke asks when you're coming back. And Kou still writes cards for you.


At which point in the email, I'm sorry to say, I cried again.

My time in Japan so far has been momentous in so many ways. Life changing, glorious and painful: frequently all at the same time. But - in teaching me how to love children, and how to understand children, and how to make them love and remember me - it has opened a door to a future that wasn't there for me before. A future that, for the first time, I think I want. That I am no longer scared of. That gives me ties of a different kind altogether.

A future with children in it.