On Sunday with the Yomiuri Shimbun on the table opened casually by my husband to the art section, there on the top page my eyes did a quick scan of a huge half-page photograph. Usually this is as far as I get “reading” the Sunday Yomiuri. But the house stopped me in my tracks because it is the spitting image of the Home card in the Genesis deck. I had absolutely no idea that here in Japan, in Chigasaki, a poet by the name of Junichi Yagi would end his life at the too young age of 29 in this lovely, inviting Presbyterian mental asylum that bares an uncanny resemblance to one of the Genesis Cards.
I drew the image on the Home card at least ten years ago. It came out of my imagination. It never occured to me that this house actually existed, anywhere on this earth, and especially a train ride away from my house in Setagaya. Here it is blown up to a half page spread in the Yomiuri Shimbun, the most read newspaper in Japan.
Coincidences like these take my breath away. I started to go into overdrive trying to sift through the connections between what I drew and this Chigasaki house itself, which still exists and how the landscape too so closely duplicates what I drew on the Home card.
I hope to God this home offered healing and love to its residents. It looks to me like it was designed to be a humane, beautiful, well-gardened alternative.
Now I have another question to ponder. Who was the poet Junichi Yagi? What were his poems about? I will do my best to get this Yomiuri article translated so I can read about him, about the house –and how I can visit it.
To find out more about Junichi Yagi:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%ABkichi_Yagi