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A thousand years ago, one evening, a woman picked up her brush, drew it over an inkstone and wrote��.

In spring it is the dawn that is most beautiful. As the light creeps over the hills, their outlines are dyed a faint red and wisps of purplish cloud trail over them.

In summer, the nights. Not only when the moon shines, but on dark nights too, as the fireflies flit to and fro, and even when it rains, how beautiful it is!

She was a lady-in-waiting who served ten years in the court of a Heian Empress; her given name has been lost. We know her only by her family name and honorific, Sei Shonagon. Yet she lives in these ancient notes as surely as if she had only just taken off her long, multi-layered court robes and slipped into something comfortable. She makes a few last notes, intimate, poetic, or perhaps a little naughty, and listens to the night sounds of the household��.

The floor-boards in the ante room are shining so brightly that they mirror everything nearby...The curtains glide smoothly back revealing the lady of the house, who under the faded dark robe she is using as her bedclothing wears a white unlined gown of raw silk and a crimson trouser skirt.

In another part of the room ladies are huddled together under a closed blind. A fire is smoldering deep in the incense burner, giving out a scent that is vaguely melancholy and full of a calm elegance. ��

Late in the evening there is a stealthy tap outside. A lady-in-waiting (the one who always knows what is happening) hurries to the gate and lets in the gentleman visitor. Then with a smug look on her face she stealthily leads him to the lady who has been awaiting his arrival.

From one side of the hall comes the beautiful sound of lute music. The player plucks the strings so gently that one can barely make out the notes.

Sei Shonagon is such a study in contrasts. She was undeniably bitchy, an inveterate gossip and a dreadful snob. She spent her days in idleness, writing poetry, making snarky comments about the servants and lower classes, and flirting with the courtiers.



But Sei Shonagon was also quick-witted, sensitive and fully awake to all the beauties of the world and when she writes like this I cannot help but like her.

Things That Make One's Heart Beat Faster:
Sparrows feeding their young.
To pass a place where babies are playing.
To sleep in a room where some fine incense has been burnt.
To notice that one's elegant Chinese mirror has become a little cloudy.
To see a gentleman stop his carriage before one's gate and instruct his attendants to announce his arrival.

The ladies of the Heian court were probably allowed more freedom than most Japanese women of the time and despite their modest fans and the curtains that screened them from view there was the possibility of semi-secret liaisons, preceded and followed by a stylized exchange of poetry. And if favors were granted one hoped that all would be graced by a certain style.

Frail as a string of bubbles is that ice.
A certain victim to the sun’s first rays.
The ribbon too will quickly come undone.
As though it were the frailest gossamer veil.

A good lover will behave as elegantly at dawn as at any other time. He drags himself out of bed with a look of dismay on his face. The lady urges him on: ‘Come my friend, it’s getting light. You don’t want anyone to find you here.�� He gives a deep sigh, as if to say that the night has not been nearly long enough and that it is agony to leave…Indeed, one’s attachment to a man depends largely on the elegance of his leave-taking

If poetry and time travel are your thing take a trip back to tenth century Japan and see the world fresh and vivid through Sei Shonagon’s eyes.

Content rating G: There are themes of love and late night meetings, but everything is coded and strictly fade-to-black and softly rustling silk.