In Japan, kaze kaoru, "the wind turns fragrant," is, I gather, a seasonal word for May, when the south wind comes rustling through the new green. Seattle is in that season now. The long cold winter has passed, and at last every tree and blade of grass has budded and come into leaf, beginning all at once to prepare for summer. A few minutes down the hill to the south lies Elliott Bay, where the ferries come and go among the nearby islands, and a good many gulls make their way up to this street as well. The faint scent of the tide carried on the warm breeze lightens my step, and, lost in the beauty of the hanging flowers, I never feel the time passing.

「風薫る」と言えば日本では南風が新緑をさらさらと吹き抜ける５月の季語らしいのだが、シアトルは今その季節にある。長く寒い冬が過ぎ漸くすべての木や草が芽吹き葉を付け、一気に夏の準備を始めた。坂を南へ数分も下れば近くの島々とのフェリーが往き来するエリオット湾があり、この通りにもカモメが多く飛んでくる。温かなそよ風が運んでくるかすかな潮の香りに足取りも軽く、吊り花の美しさに見とれながら時が過ぎるのを感じることもない。

This is a corner of the old town, lined with brick buildings from the latter half of the nineteenth century. I have taken it upon myself to call this street Plane Tree Avenue, though its proper name is Occidental Avenue. The rows of plane trees on either side, heavy with leaves, form a green tunnel in spring and put on lavish yellow robes in autumn. It is a fine thing to have a place you are fond of. Simply being in that space is enough to set me at ease.

１９世紀後半のレンガ造りの建物が並ぶ古い町の一隅だ。このストリートをプラタナス通りと勝手に名付けて呼んでいるが、正式名はオキシデンタル アベニューという。通りの両側のたっぷりと葉を付けたプラタナスの並木は、春に緑の隧道をつくり、秋には黄色の豪華な衣装を纏う。気に入りの場所があるのはうれしいもので、その空間にいるだけでもほっとした気分になることができる。

There are a good many stylish galleries and cafés around here, and they play their part in shaping the character of the neighborhood. Wandering from shop to shop, peering in as I go, is a genuine pleasure. No one passing by walks quickly. Some amble with a dog, while others walk with a child or a friend. Everyone moves, on the whole, at a slow pace. There are faces I see often here, and without our ever becoming acquainted, the greeting we settle for when our eyes meet, a slight nod, is an easy, agreeable thing. And yet, when I have come several times and do not see one of them, I find myself wondering for a moment how they are; some sense of kinship must have grown up between those people and this place. Perhaps they think the same of me, though by unspoken agreement we each keep to our own territory of feeling. Urban solitude, I thought, has this side to it as well. You are alone, and yet there is the reassurance of being somehow watched over.

(All three frames: Leica M8, Thambar 2.2/9)

この辺りは洒脱なギャラリーやカフェも多くあり、街の雰囲気づくりに一役買っている。あちこち店を覗きながらぶらぶらと散策するのは本当に楽しいものだ。行き交う人々も早足に歩くことはなく、のんびりと犬を連れていたり、子供や友人とだったり、総じてスローなペースで動いている。 ここでよく見かける人もいるが、知り合いになるまでもなく、目が合えばわずかに頷いて済ます挨拶は気軽でいいものだ。といっても数回来ている間にその人の姿を見ないとどうしてるかなと一瞬思うのは、その人達とこの場所との一体感が生まれているのだろう。向こうも同じように思っているのかもしれないが、互いに暗黙の了解で気持ちの領分を守っているようだ。都会の孤独というのはこういう一面もあるのだと思った。一人だけど何となく見守られている安心感がある。

(3カット全てLEICA M8 , Thambar 2.2/9)

In front of a gallery I felt someone's gaze, and glancing into the depths of the room I found a woman looking steadily back at me. It was as though I had come upon someone I once knew, or perhaps she overlapped with the story of some film I had seen before. We held each other's eyes for a while, and I was unsettled by the strangeness in the air. Then, quieting the flutter in my chest, I turned the camera toward her.

ギャラリーの前で視線を感じ、ふと奥を見ると一人の女性がじっとこちらを見ていた。昔知っていた人に遇ったような、或いは以前見た映画の物語かなにかとオーバーラップしているのだろうか、不思議な空気に戸惑いながら暫く見つめ合った。そしてときめく胸を静め、カメラを彼女に向けた。

As always, I was walking with the M8 mounted on a Manfrotto automatic monopod, carried over my shoulder. The fact that this does not look like anything special and seems instead a way of being that dissolves naturally into this place is surely because people know that each of us has come here carrying a world of our own, and they respect that in one another. Perhaps that atmosphere, too, is the source of this place's ease.

いつものようにマンフロットのオートマチック１脚にM8を乗せて肩に担いで歩いていたが、それが特別に見えなくて自然にこの場所に溶け込んでいるスタイルと思えるのは、人々がそれぞれ自分の世界を携えてここへ来ているのを知っていて、互いにそれを尊重し合っているからだろう。そういった雰囲気もこの場所の気楽さの所以なのかもしれない。

And today, once again, the plane trees are preparing to cast their broad, deep shade for the summer, while off to the side the hanging flowers stage the season in all their brilliance. I looked up at the blue sky, stretched myself out wide, and drew the joy of this moment deep into my chest.

そして、今日もプラタナスは夏に向けて広く大きな木陰をつくる準備をしているし、吊り花はサイドで華やかに季節の演出をしてくれている。青空を見上げ、大きく伸びをしてこのひとときの喜びを胸一杯吸い込んだ。