Essay / Nature / Life Writing

After her mother’s death, illustrator and essayist Eriiko Hirano found herself unable to grieve in the city. She retreated to the family’s mountain cottage in the Yatsugatake foothills—a house her parents had loved for nearly 40 years—intending to stay briefly.

Two years later, she is still there.

She shovels snow in winter. In summer she eats breakfast on the veranda with her cats. She watches birds at the feeder. She coaxes the overgrown garden—her mother’s garden—back to life, plant by plant.

Quietly funny, sharply observed, and deeply moving: this is a masterwork of Japanese life-writing.

“Here alone, I feel two things at once: a sense of total freedom, released from everything—and myself, moving deeper inward.”

Scenes from the Book
• A surprising insect discovered in the bathroom
• Trudging to buy snow shovels with a new neighbour
• The wood stove she has used for 35 years
• Morning breakfasts on the veranda with her cat
• Small birds arriving daily at the feeding box
• Restoring her mother’s ruined garden, season by season