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I had several encounters that were connected to Bornholm, Denmark in recent years.
I actually visited the place, relying on my intuition, “I bet I like the place”.
And my hunch was not wrong.
The island had plain and simple but beautiful scenery, abundant plants, and people were warm and live in comfort in humbleness.

Several kinds of tomatoes are planted in a small field in my garden.
My daughter harvested them but oh dear, some were not ripe, yet.
In such a case, we play with colours as a custom before we eat them.

The landowner would probably have thought “how did they ever multiply so fast?”
There is an open space near my house where apple mints grow gregariously.

After the rainy season, the growing speed of trees and plants has peaked and I can hear birds and insects singing.
In this season when people, animals, plants and insects are being active, there are two picture books that I chose to read with my daughter.

First off is “FIRST DELIGHTS” by Tasha Tudor (Translated by Chieko Suemori/Gendaikikakushitsu Publishers). Needless to write here, Tasha Tudor (1915-2008), a famous author-illustrator of children’s literature as well as a horticulturist, started a self-sufficient lifestyle in the vast land in Vermont in U.S.A. on her own in mid fifty’s when her children were grown and out on their own, which reminds us of the pioneering era of 19th century.
Most of the stuffs around Tasha were her handmade of her sense and I think that there were a lot to learn from her way of living when things are consumed at high speed today.
The beautiful garden she had made over the years fascinates us even now.

The 1966 first edition, “FIRST DELIGHTS” is about a story of daily life of a girl, Sally, who lives together with nature throughout the seasons.
Perhaps, Sally was Tasha’s another child when she was living on a big farm of New Hampshire with her husband and four children, or herself who lived in Connecticut as a child.

Tash Tudor has left a message at the end of the book as;
“This is a year in Sally’s life, filled with the special delights her five senses bring.
These delights can be yours, too, when you smell a flower, or hear a bird’s song, or see the stars on a quiet night.
Then, like Sally, you’ll know that the truly wonderful things in the world are all around you, waiting for you to find them.”

The other book is “A Brighter Garden” (Poetry collected by Karen Ackerman, Translated by Rieko Naito, Kadokawa Corp.) in which Tasha Tudor drew illustrations on the poetry of a poet, Emily Dickinson.
Fascinated by the painting of bright beautiful garden on the cover as if inviting me into it, I could feel the joy of Tasha Tudor, who was a fan of Emily Dickinson’s work, for drawing the illustrations, and I couldn’t help but opening the picture book.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) carved out her career for herself and her life was very different from Tasha Tudor whose work was adored by many people during her lifetime and lived long.
From her early 30s until her age of 55, she wore white clothes and kept writing poetry without ever leaving the house.
However, it was discovered only after her death when a huge amount of poetry was found in her room.
Despite that her territory was limited in the real world, her poetry world was truly rich and expanding endlessly.
The unknown poet who lived much of her life in isolation became the leading poet in the United States after her death: her mysterious life may be the reason Emily Dickinson is called a “miracle in the history of American literature”

This is one of Emily Dickinson’s poem in “A Brighter Garden”, the sight which comes to my mind at this time of the year.
“The Bee is not afraid of me.
I know the Butterfiy.
The pretty people in the Woods
Receive me cordially —

The Brooks laugh louder when I come —
The Breezes madder play;
Wherefore mine eye thy silver mists,
Wherefore, Oh Summer’s Day?”

Ms. Kazuyo Imai is a friend of mine, who lives at the foot of Yatsugatake, makes a trip to and from a small island of Denmark, and draws watercolour & makes prints of plants, flowers, birds, insects etc in nature.
She laughs and says, ”I always stay at home drawing” but I can feel her quiet breathing confronting nature though her paintings.
When I visited her exhibition in June, I was particularly fascinated by a small painting of a butterfly and a cocoon and she kindly handed over to me.
The painting had a poem of Emily Dickinson carved that Kazuyo liked.
If only I could weave threads that have turned its shape from a cocoon as freely as a butterfly flies: displaying the painting in the atelier thinking such thing.

“From Cocoon forth a Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged—a Summer Afternoon—
Repairing Everywhere—”

It was a summer when words and paintings created by the three women from different eras crossed in me.

Something that I brought back from the sea of Shonan where I visited the other day after a long time. They have the smell of the sea.
Pieces of pottery which had lost sharpness before drifted ashore blend in with the shells.

I’ve become used to seeing a foggy scene like a smeared ink painting.
Rain and fog are a set seen especially at the foothills in this time of the year when it is moist and rainy.

My 4-year-old daughter loves pink.
When she dresses herself, her hat, T-shirt, skirt, socks and shoes become with all pink and I get shocked.
“How about this skirt?” Even if I suggest her with a different colour, she sticks to her pink coordinate she chose and seems to be thrilled and in a happy mood.

One morning, I was walking as if to follow the bright vermilion coloured Rhododendron Kampferi that bloom here and there in the forest.