I met Trent in 2012 in a car park in Winnipeg. We were handing out flyers on the Canadian fringe circuit. I was wearing a pink tutu for my contemporary clown show and Trent was in the tight black suit of his vaudeville character the Birdmann. We barely spoke but I had this strange feeling, almost as if I should avoid him – a feeling I sometimes get around people who go on to become important in my life.

Backstage at the next festival in Edmonton, Trent kept trying to give me liquorice but I don’t like it. I wasn’t sure why he was paying me so much attention, although I wondered if he was impressed by seeing me play trumpet in the show.

Afterwards, everyone was heading to dinner. It was pouring rain and Trent was waiting for me with an umbrella. That was the first time we really talked. Later I sat on the back of his bicycle while he rode us home. We got lost and rode around in circles.

We spent most of the next two weeks together. What I liked most about him was his gentleness. He is 6ft 2in and softly spoken – a gentle giant. He also made me laugh. I saw his one-man romantic comedy three times; his clowning was hilarious.

When my tour ended I returned home to Seattle while Trent, who was based in Melbourne, continued west on the fringe circuit. We kept messaging and a couple of weeks later he came to stay with me and my mum, Shoko, for three weeks. In Edmonton we had become romantic without defining what we were, so I simply told Mum a friend was coming to stay.

The year before, the coastal town near Sendai where my family lived had been devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Mum’s house and car were washed away. For three days I believed she and my sister were dead before learning they were safe in a shelter. Mum moved to Seattle to live with me. She had lost many people and was overcome with grief.

Mum didn’t speak English and Trent knew only a few Japanese phrases. When they met he said them so convincingly she thought he was fluent and would talk to him as though he understood everything.

They began building their own relationship. When we went to our neighbourhood supermarket, Mum invented a game in which she would sneak up on him. She was 4ft 8in, so it was like a child creeping up on an adult.

One day Trent and I were sitting in a park in Capitol Hill, taking photos and writing a silly song together. We stopped at a grocery store but I didn’t notice him buying anything. When we got home he took out some small chocolates and gave them to Mum, using one of his Japanese phrases: “Shoko-san, presento.” Her eyes filled with tears. She was so touched.

After that, whenever Trent and I went out, he would bring Mum a treat – chocolate, or Japanese sweets including manju, a pastry filled with red bean paste, and daifuku, soft mochi with a sweet filling.

I had never experienced a romantic partner being so thoughtful towards my mum. It wasn’t something he was doing to impress me; he cared about her as a person. The way Trent treated Mum showed me who he was.

When he left, Mum cried at the door and hugged him. Afterwards, she asked if he had been an international exchange student. I had once been a homestay student myself so she assumed he was doing the same. I found this hilarious, especially considering he’d been sleeping in my room!

Trent and I kept in touch but didn’t see each other for 10 months. Part of me thought those three weeks might remain a lovely summer memory. Eventually we met in Japan and decided we wanted to be together, and we spent the next few years moving between Australia, Canada and the US.

We also began making work together. Trent had always imagined the Birdmann performing with a musical egg, so I became Egg. He writes the words and I write the music; our different skills fit to make the strange things we both like.

In 2013 Mum returned to Sendai. She missed Japan, despite everything she had lost. We visited whenever we could and on those trips Trent kept bringing her small treats.

Eventually Trent and I moved to Wellington, New Zealand, and in 2023 we married in its botanic garden. Mum was too unwell to travel and couldn’t be there. She died a few months later, aged 75. We miss her a lot.

Trent and I have now moved to London with our cat, Nina. Like any couple, we have difficult periods but performing together brings us back into sync. Our work is based on joy and the extraordinary, and this reminds us not to lose those things in everyday life.

Tell us the moment you knew