Today, I feel that my presence here is becoming natural. To start with, I was in an ambiguous position, since I was neither a facility user nor a staff member, and I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I was spending time in the Kodomo Shokudo. But now I’ve somehow started helping to serve the food and eating and chatting with the children and their parents when they ask whether I’m going to have a meal here today. When I say “natural,” I think it’s as though there’s something like an object that gives me an invisible connection to the place, through a combination of the people here gradually accepting me and me accepting this environment. This might be what Ms. Kondo meant when she said, “create a place for yourself” when I first started visiting. I get the feeling that it’s something that actually happens rather slowly.