Peter talks about growing up in Japan

    It was an old wooden house with sliding doors made of light wood and paper squares. Sometimes I'd lick my finger and push it through the paper, but I got in big trouble for that and I found out after a while it just wasn't worth it. Obaachan, my grandmother had patches to repair the holes with. They were little pieces of paper and some of them were the shape of maple leaves. Everything about living in this house seemed to have to do with gentleness and peace. I remember waking as a little boy to the sounds of morning that start as faint suggestions and grow into more definite pictures. I would wake with one arm outstretched from the warmth of the quilt and the futon and the back of my hand rested on the cool tatami matting. The first sounds I heard were the soft foot falls of Obaachan. It was still dark when she arose. As soon as she switched on the kitchen light, the paper squares on the door near me would light up, but only slightly because there was another room between mine and the kitchen. I heard the sounds of a quiet old lady doing what she had done every morning for years. There was running water, the strike of a match and the small popping sound of a gas stove being ignited. Sometimes I slid the door open just a little. I looked across the dark tatami to another paper door that was ajar and saw Obaachan in the kitchen getting breakfast ready. She stooped forward when she walked as if someone had permanently bent her in that position. I can't remember if her back was sore; I never heard her complain about it but then again I was only young.....somewhere between two and three years old and I didn't take much notice of such things. I know this though: she wouldn't have been in the habit of complaining because she wasn't that sort of woman. Whether or not her back was sore, it didn't stop her from carrying me on it. I would lean forward and rub my cheek on hers and hear her soft voice as she spoke to a little monkey on her back.