I'd forgotten April could run as deep as this, in an easterly that picks up in the afternoon, so the first attempt at reading up at the pond — Kawabata's Dandelions — was an uncertain affair. I saw two whirligig beetles. Pete is cutting paths in the woodland. The meadow hardly needs a path. Yellow rattle is established more and more.
We're struggling with our stewardship in the season of dandelions. Trying to fix roofs and making mistakes. Living with them. The roofs and the mistakes. Rough and Roof are kissing cousins.
Kawabata's dandelions grow around the Ikuta Institute where Ineko has been committed. As her mother and her fiancé leave the Institute, they are told that when they hear the 3 o'clock bell Ineko will be ringing it and that they'll hear her through the bell.
Her fiancé and her mother discuss her case. They are staying nearby in an old inn, in the season of dandelions. They have heard that dandelions open in the sunlight and close at night, but they aren't sure that's the case.
It is.
Ineko's illness, somagnosia, is the centre of Dandelions, plays out off-stage, acknowledged by a temple bell. The novel wasn't finished, or has no finish. Two people are talking about the condition of a third, Ineko, who plays ping pong and sometimes loses sight of the ball, makes love with her fiancé and sometimes loses sight of his body.
This is a time to read books that have no centre of gravity.
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