“Do these really bring you joy?” I asked.
The expression on her face changed instantly. “That jacket, you know I love the design, but I really wanted one in black. They didn’t have a black one in my size.… Not having a brown jacket, I thought that I would buy it anyway, but in the end it just didn’t seem to suit me and I only wore it a few times.
“As for the blouse, I was really attracted to the design and to the material, so I actually bought two of them. I wore the first one until it couldn’t be worn, but for some reason I just don’t seem to choose the second one anymore.”
I had never seen how she treated these items nor did I know anything about the circumstances surrounding their purchase. All I did was observe carefully the clothes hanging in her closet. When you examine things closely, you can begin to discern whether or not those things bring their owner joy. When a woman is in love, the change in her is apparent to everyone around her. The love she receives from her partner, the confidence that love gives her, and her desire to make the effort to look beautiful for him all give her energy. Her skin glows, her eyes shine, and she becomes even more beautiful. In the same way, things that are loved by their owner and treated with care are vibrant and radiate an aura of wanting to be of more service to their owner. Things that are cherished shine. This is why I can tell at a glance whether something truly sparks joy. The genuine emotion of joy resides in the body and in the possessions of the owner, and therefore it can’t be concealed.
Being surrounded by things that spark joy makes you happy
Everyone has things that they love, things that they cannot imagine parting with, even though other people shake their heads in disbelief when they see them. I see the things that other people find precious every day, and you would be amazed at the strange and incomprehensible articles that capture people’s hearts—a set of ten finger puppets each with one eye only and every eye different, a broken alarm clock shaped like the Morinaga Noobow character, a driftwood collection that looks more like a heap of scrap wood. But the immediate response to my hesitant, “Does this … um, really spark joy?” is an emphatic “Yes!” There is no arguing with their confident gaze and shining eyes because I, too, have one such item: my Kiccoro T-shirt.
Kiccoro (“Forest Child”) was one of two official mascots for Aichi Expo 2005, which promoted love for the earth and renewable, eco-friendly technology. The larger mascot, Morizo, is perhaps better known. Kiccoro was Morizo’s sidekick, a little, lime green, roly-poly character, and my T-shirt shows only Kiccoro’s face. I wear it around the house all the time. It is one thing that I just cannot bring myself to part with, even if people were to ridicule me, saying, “How can you keep this? Aren’t you embarrassed? How can you wear that? You should throw it away.”
Let me be clear. The clothes I wear at home are generally cute and pretty. I usually wear girly things, such as camisoles with layers of pink frills and flower-print cotton ensembles, around the house. The only exception is my Kiccoro T-shirt. It is quite a curious article, shocking green in color with just Kiccoro’s eyes and half-open, full-lipped mouth, and the tag clearly indicates that it’s a children’s size. As the Expo was held in 2005, I’ve been wearing it for many years even though I have no sentimental memories from the event itself. Just reading what I’ve written here makes me feel embarrassed to be hanging on to such a thing, yet whenever I see it, I can’t bring myself to throw it away. My heart starts beating faster as soon as I see Kiccoro’s lovely round eyes.
The contents of my drawers are organized so that I can see at a glance what’s there. This T-shirt sticks out like a sore thumb among all my graceful, feminine clothes, yet that just makes it more endearing. It’s so old now, you would think that it would be stretched out of shape or stained, but it’s not, so I can’t find any excuse in that area for discarding it. The fact that the tag declares it was made in some other country even though it was a Japanese expo could have ruined its appeal for me, yet I still can’t throw it away.