（続き）
The sofa in the living room is positioned at an angle. It used to face the TV stand against the east wall. Now, when I sit on it, the south-facing window takes up nearly two-thirds of my field of vision. I don’t watch television; I only watch the odd recorded programme. When I sit on the sofa from just after 4 pm until around 5 pm, the wall of the house across the street is bathed in the setting sun and looks bright. The sky visible through the lace curtains is blue, and I find myself thinking that the sunset will be beautiful in a few minutes’ time. The forecast said the weather would turn bad at the weekend, so perhaps it will be a sunset with patchy clouds spreading across the sky. However, I merely imagine this; I cannot bring myself to actually leave the house and go for a walk.
When I don’t go out anywhere and my conversations with people dry up for days on end, I’ve started playing music at dinner time. Sometimes I use bone-conduction earphones, sometimes a neck speaker. Sometimes it’s the small Bluetooth speaker my daughter gave my wife. No matter how low I turn the volume, the moment the music starts playing, the cat moves away from me. That never used to happen whilst my wife was alive.
My wife never liked headphones or earphones. Until our daughter gave her the speaker, she used to listen through her iPhone’s speakers. Like me, she mainly listened to old songs, but perhaps because she used to listen to FM radio in the car, she also had songs by new singers and bands I didn’t know.
She bought everything from iTunes, but whether she couldn’t or wouldn’t listen to samples, she would sometimes lament that the arrangement was different from what she’d expected after purchasing it.
When I returned from my evening walk, my wife was playing music whilst preparing dinner.
The cat moved from my wife’s side to come to me when I got home.
I remembered that one of the songs she was listening to was an old track from NHK’s ‘Minna no Uta’.They were all songs I’d never heard before. When I looked it up, I realised they were from when we were in secondary school. Had she still been listening to ‘Minna no Uta’ even after starting secondary school? As for the sombre song based on Greek mythology, it seemed to have first been broadcast when she was at university.
After her death, I couldn’t access her iPhone, and all the music she had purchased was lost.
Now, the speakers my daughter gave her play songs I’ve added. I suppose I started playing music to alleviate the loneliness of the silence, yet there are no songs during mealtimes; it is only when I’m tidying up or cleaning after a meal that I finally choose tracks with vocals. Even I find it hard to understand why I do this…
リビングのソファを斜めに置いている。もともとは東の壁際のテレビ台へ向けていた。今は座ると視界の三分の二近くを南の窓が占めている。私はテレビを見ない。録画したものを偶に観るぐらいだ。16時過ぎから17時くらいまでソファに座ると、通りの向こうの家の壁が西陽に照らされて明るく見える。レースのカーテン越しに見える空は青く、もう何十分かすれば夕陽が美しいだろうなと考える。週末は天候が崩れるとの予報だったから、ウロコ雲の広がる夕映えになるのかもしれない。しかし、それを想像するばかりで実際に家を出て歩いてみる気持ちにはなれない。
どこへも出かけることもなく、人との会話が何日も途絶えると、夕食の際には音楽を流すようになった。骨伝導イヤホンの時もあればネックスピーカーの時もある。娘が妻へ贈った小さなBluetoothスピーカーの時も。ボリュームをどんなに小さく絞っても音楽が流れ始めると猫は私の傍から離れてしまう。妻が生きている間は、そんなことはなかったのだが。
妻はヘッドフォンもイヤフォンも苦手だった。娘がスピーカーをプレゼントするまではiPhoneのスピーカーで聞いていた。私と同じように古い曲が中心だったがカーラジオでFMを聞いていたからか、私の知らない新しい歌い手やグループの歌もあった。
みんなiTunesから購入していたのだが、試し聴きが出来ないのかしないのか、購入してから、思っていたものとは違うアレンジだったと嘆いていることも。
私が夕方の散歩から帰ってくると、妻は夕食の準備をしながら音楽を流していた。
猫は妻の傍から帰宅した私の下へ。
彼女が聞いていた曲の中に、NHKのみんなのうたの古い歌があったのを思いだした。私が聞いたこともないような歌ばかり。調べてみたら私たちの中学生の頃。彼女は中学生になっても、みんなの歌を聞いていたのか。ギリシア神話を題材にした暗い歌に至っては初放送は大学生の頃のようだった。
彼女の死後、iPhoneを開くことが出来ず、彼女の購入した音楽は全て失われた。
娘のプレゼントしたスピーカーからは、今は私の入れた曲が流れる。人声寂しさから音楽を流したはずなのに食事時には歌はなく、食後の後片付け・清掃時になって漸くヴォーカルのある曲を選択する。それも何なのか自分でも理解し難いのだが……。
Bluesky
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:cahha3pon5tpzngpddaimdof/post/3mjnjlkigtc26
The music used for the slides was
Piano Amor
Melody of Life
SoundCloud
