I seldom talked about my father; yet sometimes out of randomness I had got into the way of involuntarily thinking of my times with him during childhood. It wasn’t that we were in a particularly hostile, fraught father-daughter relationship, though I would prefer ‘peculiar’ as a more accurate term. Rather, it was the awkwardness of an inexperienced youth, feeling of constraint, to comprehend my father’s imperturbable face, that seemed to hang between us. 

 

My father was a man of few words, and more often strove to be entirely quiescent as much as he could. Even as I (as a child) tried to guzzle his countenance, it appeared to be in vain to discern what had been on his mind. He was rarely at home — I ever doubted if he had gone out from everyday life into the unknown or rode deep into the woods to carry out his brown study, about trees and flowers, like Makino Tomitaro. The only time when I felt so strongly the unique aura he had emanated, was when he accumulated a core into which all the passion for botany was concentrated. Without any aches of exhaustion, he would seize every chance to explain to me the trees he used in my name and my dead elder brother’s: The elm (榆木) in my name reflected his hope that I would embody the same resilience and tenacity as the tree itself. Similarly, my brother’s name included the catalpa (梓木), a tree revered as one of the Four Great Trees, and known as the King of All Trees. It was completely a misfortune, that my brother was not fully blessed with the hope he had been endowed in the name before departing from this world, for various reasons. Catalpa soon became a taboo at home for us. Although my father, on the surface, diffused the gloom over himself, the younger me could still feel the sign that he had tried hard to avoid catalpa in his life, and when it happened he would pretentiously and swiftly fix his mood on something else. 

 

On one singular day, in one moment of aberration, my father agreed to himself that I might be a great company to play the old game of self-preservation with him, in Mizumoto Park. I originally thought he would have left me alone in the playground yonder whilst he would indulge into nature. But what further aberration it would be that he instead took me to the tranquil grove known as the ‘Forest of Metasequoia’. 

 

‘Look up,’ he said with asserted tranquillity. 

 

I looked up to see the Metasequoia trees standing in strangely orderly rows, and their branches never seemed to overlap. It was this harmonious separation, with each tree occupying its own pristine space, that resembled the leaf venation, or more aesthetically, some kinds of paintings that would appear in realist art. 

 

‘What did you see?’ asked my father. 

 

I leaned forward and tried to look into his face as steadily as I could, but failed to throw any words. 

 

‘No, don’t look at me. Look up. See.’ 

 

‘It looked like a maze? Or… some roads in the sky?’ I stammered gingerly. 

 

He seemed mysterious and enchanted, yet had no thought of commenting my answer and went on waxing lyrical,

 

‘This phenomenon is called “Crown Shyness”, wherein the crowns of neighboring trees extend their branches and leaves without overlapping, forming this canopy with channel-like gaps. There are different theories explaining such physiology, for instance, their distancing is a kind of survival mechanism for efficiently capturing light to make way for photosynthesis; or to avoid the mechanical stress that will cause damages through abrasion or breakage due to wind or movement. Isn’t it amazing to learn how nature manages itself?’

 

His fervidness had stupefied me. Realising this, in split seconds, he returned to his frigid tone that was brimmed somehow with a tinge of tenderness, 

 

‘What seems more intriguing to me is how trees are able to maintain a more respectful distance from each other than humans. Keeping distance however does not mean an end to a relationship; rather it is a way to be aware of our boundaries.’

 

I remained astonished, nodded affirmatively. 

​

‘Look — even as the crowns shyly withdraw from one another in the air, there is always a connection that endures deep within, in the root, in the soil and in the heart,’ my father had no intention to refrain from the joy of life that beamed from his face. 

 

Years after years, I have still believed that it is a kind of wisdom that has imperceptibly shaped me.