my childhood I was afraid of my father shouting loudly, and if I hear someone talking even a little bit violently, I quickly become upset. Feeling pity for him, I asked“ What’ s the matter?” and he pointed to his chest with his big hand, saying“ Heartache.” Even though I guessed it was my fault, I asked“ Why?” and he answered“ Because you are avoiding me.” I told him“ That’ s not true” over and over, but it was no use, so I sat down beside him. This happened many times, until finally he cheered up.
One time, his mother took us to a Japan show, and a dolphin show, together with Setsu. As usual, on the way home, I relaxed so much that I slept. The two of us talked together, went shopping for groceries, and went out on dates, and after a while he began to say often, [ You and me love. I want to marry you.] in his broken Japanese.
One day, he said that he had some paid work to do. It was to play the guitar at a bar, so Setsu and I went with him. I ordered a brandy, and listened to his guitar playing. His work was soon finished, and he came over to our table, and took a sip of my brandy. After that we went with Setsu to a Japanese restaurant. He hardly ever ate anything, but Setsu and I ordered eel, I think, and I asked him“ Would you like to try a bit of this?” He replied with an old Japanese saying, while chewing on a toothpick,“ The samurai glories in honorable poverty,” and waited until we had finished eating. Setsu asked“ Why won’ t you eat? Are you dieting?” but he shook his head“ No.” I thought to myself that he’ s a difficult person to understand. It seems though, that he was saving money to go to Japan.
He was always dressed in jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, or in a T-shirt with a black leather jacket, carrying his guitar.
At the Los Angeles dojo there was an aikido grading test, and Seagal was to take the test to become a 1st dan, so Setsu and I went with him to the dojo. For the test, Fujihira-sensei sat in the front corner of the dojo, with the grading papers. Then we were amazed to see what happened next. During the test, the sensei nodded off, and his whole body was rocking back and forth like someone rowing a boat! Even though you could hardly miss it, everyone was calm and nobody seemed surprised to see him sleeping. At this strange scene, Setsu and I looked around inquisitively at everyone’ s faces, not even trying to suppress our wonder. Finally, someone saw us looking, and smiled as if to say‘” Yeah, we know,” so we relaxed again. When we asked afterwards, it seems that the sensei always slept during the test time. We were wondering how a student could get to a higher grade then, but he told us that when one student asked Fujihira-sensei that question, he replied,“ I can tell if they pass or not even if I’ m sleeping, because my ki is watching.”
While at the seminar, we had made friends with another woman, called Shelly I think. She was kind enough to take us for a drive deep into the mountains and we stayed overnight at her place there.
Finally, we returned to San Francisco. Marie had heard stories about us from people who had already returned from the seminar, and said to me,“ Miyako, I hear you’ ve got a boyfriend now?”
After a few days, Seagal and others came to San Francisco, and we went out on a few dates. Not so much dates really, just to the dojo and restaurants, or maybe to a friend’ s place. We weren’ t really alone together much.
The day of our return to Japan was coming closer, and we decided to go home via Seattle. The teacher of the dojo in Seattle let us stay at his place, and even had one of his students give us a ride to the airport. And so, our two month trip had come to an end, and we returned safely to Japan at the end of August.
Seagal had already made plans to come to Japan before meeting me, and at the Orange County dojo he said to me,“ I’ ll definitely be going to Japan.” Even when I returned home, he often sent me letters with a guitar pick enclosed.
Seagal came to Japan in October of that year. He came to my house a few days before Christmas, and after several times of me going up to Tokyo, or him coming down to Osaka, we had a simple wedding in January of the following year.
My mother accepted my marriage to a foreigner without objection, but I had caused her a lot of problems, what with my request for the loan so that K- shihan could operate the dojo, and on top of that, this wedding was the start of a long life of poverty.
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