友人関係の「人生の相棒」たちとの年に一度の結集の機会が終わった。
　ということで、少し疲れを感じていたので日帰り温泉でどっぷりと脳味噌まで浸かっていたいと思って、クルマを走らせて出発したら、ものの数分でケータイが鳴ってしまった。
　やむなく安全地帯に駐車してケータイに出たら、三兄からの電話。で、そこから約１時間、先日の法要の時に渡していた祖母の「戸籍謄本」についての疑問をぶつけられていた。
　現代日本人にとって、明治以降に制度整備された「戸籍制度」はまことに信頼に足る民族の記録資産。非常に誠意に満ちた制度設計で、日本人のマジメさが極限的に生きている制度だと思います。そういう信頼に足る記録にあった、祖母とその母親という直系尊属について、表記された事実関係に多くの「？」があふれている。
　信頼できる事実記録の「背景事情」については、輻輳する社会状況を冷静に汲み取っていきながら、流れとしての「整合性」を組み立てていかなければならない。断片的な記録内容は正確だという前提に立つと、想像力を最大化させないと「腑に落ちてこない」ことがあり得る。
　そういう類いの疑問点を、わたしにぶつけられてくるのです。
　わたし自身もまだ、腑に落ちているワケではないので、ひとつの「壁打ち」機会と思い、いっしょに考えた。
　それはそれで「筋道の確立」には大いに役立つ機会ではあるので、説明しつつ、戸籍記録についての整合的解釈を、一生懸命に共同作業していた。・・・
　で、ようやく話にある「頓悟」感が出て電話を切ったら、即座に長兄からの電話着信。たぶん長電話中に何回か電話されていたのかもと思いつつ、午後にわが家に来るという展開になった。
　という流れで、やむなく「脳味噌ドップリ」チャンスは霧のようにあわく消えていった。
　長兄との会話でも、写真にあるようなご先祖様の「行動履歴」証拠物などから見えてくる「実相」について、これも「壁打ち」的な会話に終始。
　次兄から渡されたたくさんの資料類に加えて、長兄の家からも先祖からの「伝承品」一切がわたしのところに集積してきているので、自然とひとつずつ丹念に「腑に落とす」作業を迫られている次第。
　「オイオイ、これも幕末期かよ〜。え、房吉？恭平？」であります。
　しかし、格好の「脳活」機会ではある。・・・どこまで続くのかこの道は？

●お知らせ
拙書「作家と住空間」幻冬舎から電子書籍で発刊
お求めはAmazonで。
https://amzn.asia/d/eUiv9yO

English version⬇

[The “presence” of family ties swarming toward me (lol)]
When researching your family history, once you suddenly realize a certain pattern, new questions start popping up one after another like clouds in the sky. I’ll face them calmly and patiently! …

　My annual get-together with my “life partners”—my close friends—has come to an end.
　Since I was feeling a bit tired, I decided to head to a day-trip hot spring to soak thoroughly—right down to my brain—so I got in the car and set off, only to have my cell phone ring just a few minutes later.
I had no choice but to pull over to a safe spot and answer the call—it was my third older brother. From there, for about an hour, he bombarded me with questions about the “certified copy of the family register” for our grandmother that I’d handed over at the memorial service the other day.
　For modern Japanese people, the “family register system”—established and refined since the Meiji era—is a truly reliable national record. I believe it is a system designed with great sincerity, one that embodies the Japanese sense of diligence to the utmost. Yet, in these trustworthy records, the facts listed regarding my grandmother and her mother—my direct lineal ancestors—are riddled with “?” marks.
　When it comes to the “background circumstances” of these reliable factual records, we must calmly take into account the complex social context of the time and piece together the “coherence” of the narrative as a whole. If we assume that the fragmentary records are accurate, there may be instances where things simply “don’t make sense” unless we exercise our imagination to the fullest.
　It is precisely these kinds of questions that people bring to me.
Since I myself haven’t fully come to terms with it yet either, I treated it as an opportunity to “bounce ideas off someone” and we thought it through together.
Since this is, in its own way, a very helpful opportunity for “establishing a logical framework,” I worked hard with him to collaboratively develop a coherent interpretation of the family register records while explaining my reasoning. …
Then, just as I finally felt that sense of “epiphany” we’d been talking about and hung up the phone, I immediately received a call from my eldest brother. I suspected he might have called several times while I was on that long phone call, and it turned out he was coming over to my house that afternoon.
As a result, my much-anticipated chance to “dive headfirst into deep thought” vanished like mist.
　Even in my conversation with my eldest brother, we ended up having yet another back-and-forth discussion about the “true nature” revealed by evidence of our ancestors’ “activity histories,” as seen in the photos.
　In addition to the many documents handed over by my second-eldest brother, all the “heirlooms” passed down from our ancestors at my eldest brother’s house have also been accumulating at my place, so I’m naturally being forced to painstakingly “make sense of” each one, one by one.
　“Whoa, wait—is this from the Bakumatsu period too? Huh, Fusakichi? Kyōhei?” is my reaction.
　Still, it’s a perfect opportunity to “exercise my brain.” …Just how far will this path lead?

● Announcement
My book, *Writers and Living Spaces*, has been published as an e-book by Gentosha.
Available on Amazon.
　

Posted on 9月 12th, 2026 by 三木 奎吾
Filed under: 未分類