Good morning from Pt. Reyes,
I’m drawn to the edges, to points, tips, and places where things begin and end at the same time. Where the getting there takes effort and the returning from even more. Where the potential change of temperature and mood in between coming and going is unsettling, enervating, uplifting, perhaps even dangerous. Where I depart a slightly different person than I was on arriving.
To places the sounds, sights, smells, tastes and feelings of which, once experienced, cannot be washed or brushed off, or easily replaced with other sensory stimuli. To places that beg to be committed to memory in a photograph, as a shield against the incessant infiltration of images and thoughts that will relentlessly, inevitably and willfully fill up my every day life once reality has forced my retreat from the edge.
I do not go when there are crowds or lines. No, I need an unimpeded view such that no other human being’s emotional and physical composition presents a challenge to my communion with the edge.
I close my eyes and imagination what the edge is like in the middle of the night, in the middle of a dense fog, in the middle of a storm, at Summer and Winter Solstice, at Spring and Fall Equinox.
I open my eyes knowing that when I turn to leave and can no longer see it, the edge will care not a whit about my absence. Yet I will think about it every day until I can return again. Such is the power the edge has always had over me.
Giselle
January 10, 2013 at 6:29 pm
beginningless endings – endless beginnings
January 10, 2013 at 6:31 pm
Superb
January 10, 2013 at 6:37 pm
On our list in 2014. We love the California coast. Lovely thoughts.
January 10, 2013 at 6:52 pm
Greetings miriam dunn and Jim Marsh. James Barraford you and your wife would love it, of that I am sure. T. Pascal how sad is it that I have never been to Ireland? …sensation visiting the cliffs… = “visitation?” Think so… 😉
January 10, 2013 at 6:56 pm
T. Pascal I have to +1 your comment 🙂 Yes, some of the coastal scenery in Ireland is very similar to California. The Big Sur in particular reminded me of wild West Cork type scenery. Now I want to go back to visit California again !
January 10, 2013 at 7:00 pm
Thank you for the beautiful prose and thoughts
January 10, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Well, Italy pulls me T. Pascal that’s for sure. And I’m not one to have a list of places that I need to see just so that I can say I’ve been there. I need to get a real feeling of it, to spend some time there, to experience it. Which is the reason I don’t do group tours or cruises or anything of the kind. I have on occasion rushed to see something if I know I’ll not likely get another chance, but it isn’t my way. Eileen O’Duffy Brian Altman and I have talked about visiting Ireland soon. Perhaps even this year. A place I most certainly want to visit.
January 10, 2013 at 7:06 pm
Well that comment ought to convince him to go T. Pascal He could even do a side-by-side framed photo montage. Guess which is Ireland, and which the Northern seashore of California. In black and white. Actually the seashore in black and white is quite stunning.
January 10, 2013 at 7:13 pm
Giselle Minoli I would just love if you and Brian Altman could come over and visit Ireland and I can help you plan your trip. Your comment above tells me what you are looking for:
“I do not go when there are crowds or lines. No, I need an unimpeded view such that no other human being’s emotional and physical composition presents a challenge to my communion with the edge.”
I can promise you that at least two thirds of my beautiful country will enable this.
Sorry about the digression, you are in sunny California now and enjoy:-)
January 10, 2013 at 7:26 pm
Newfoundland and Cape Breton. They should be on every persons list. If you live on East coast its not far at all. Three hour flight or sixteen hour drive from NYC to end of Cape Breton for the ferry to Newfoundland.
January 10, 2013 at 7:31 pm
I agree James Barraford I live in Cape breton , quite near the ferry // I have two public picassa albums of local photos .
January 10, 2013 at 7:32 pm
Sheer poetry and what a gorgeous pic! Hope you’re having a fab time!
January 10, 2013 at 8:00 pm
So, miriam dunn Dunn, James Barraford, Eileen O’Duffy and T. Pascal…you are all telling me that there are many edges, tips and points I have yet to discover. Best get busy.
Off on a walk, on which I will think of all of you.
January 10, 2013 at 8:02 pm
Some curves, as well 🙂
January 10, 2013 at 8:03 pm
So Beautiful.
January 10, 2013 at 10:32 pm
What a place. Superb shot
January 11, 2013 at 1:56 am
Yep, the beaches are plenty curvy miriam dunn. Thank you Kenneth McCormack and Marie Hélène Visconti. Yes, what a place. I wouldn’t even call myself an amateur photographer. I take pictures with my iPhone or my (very) old Nikon cool pix, which, as a camera I actually love. I don’t pretend toward any sophisticated ability with a camera. Would that I could, but I can’t. Maybe one day.
January 11, 2013 at 3:05 am
Really a good shot!
January 11, 2013 at 6:42 pm
Giselle Minoli As Alan Watts said, most things not made by man
isare “squiggly.”I type this from my very rectangular desk while viewing on my similarly polygonal monitor.
January 11, 2013 at 7:07 pm
Thank you, bill zhao. You, being a San Franciscan, would mostly likely know this joint.
Jack C Crawford it is very difficult, often impossible, to determine which format to use for any particular picture. Vertical speaks. Landscape beckons. Portrait entreats. Round is always rejected. Too Victorian. Big fat square is interesting but hard to fill. Panoramic works only in real life and doesn’t translate.
Standing there, committing a particular site to memory is the best, but without Spock’s mind meld, impossible to relate. 🙁
January 11, 2013 at 7:39 pm
#fractals #fibonacci … #infiniteComplexity
We just can’t think it through to completion … so we find peace in accepting and noticing