Tags
It's a cool and very windy Sunday, with cloudy skies and swirling trees. A good day to stay in and rest – as becomes a Sunday. Perhaps because of the weather, and most precisely the wind, I found my thoughts drifting into memories, revisiting some of the ground I wrote about two years ago.
Why wind should have such an influence, I don't fully understand, but it clearly does. Michelangelo Antonioni used the wind to great effect in the pivotal scene in Blow-Up, one of my few truly essential movies. Only after repeated viewing did I fully grasp that a good part of the tension of that outdoor scene where our protaganist may – or may not – have witnessed the prelude to a murder is due to the camera encompassing and lingering on the wind as shown by the movement of the trees.
The direct stimulus for my return to the distant past was the discovery of this old photograph, taken in the late 1970s, of a view from top of The Chantries hill, looking south into Surrey. I was rooting around in the basement, attempting to organize some of my oldest things.
A largely undistinguished photograph, and one that needed to be balanced again for color after I scanned it as it was faded and browned. Sometimes I wonder if I do not do the same thing to my memories. Perhaps I do. What was remarkable to me, looking at that photograph, is that I was not seeing what I once saw. Nothing to do with my eyes, although a pair of reading glasses is now a necessity, and everything to do with my mind.
So, why then, does it look so different? The answer lies in the emotion behind the seeing. In the past, I would have felt an acute nostalgia at such a sight, and I can still feel glimmerings of that around the edges of my thoughts, but now I see it largely as the landscape it is. A beautiful landscape, but by no means uniquely beautiful. It used to be so. Much of my early adolescence revolved about that land where I roamed again and again, and my earliest deep and remembered thoughts derive from that time.
The influence of those memories and that state of mind, in large part one of loneliness and anxiety (but also a delicious aloneness), was very strong throughout my early life and well into my middle years. Today, it has effectively vanished. So I can say I am not the same person who took that photograph, and who gazed upon for a long time. Yet I am made out of that same person, so I cannot regard it with complete dispassion. That's why I am writing this.
Moments such as these will return from time to time for the rest of my life.
Very eloquently written, methinks.Your thought about whether we are "the same" person as we were back in the day rings a bell in my mind. I have had -and have – similar thoughts quite often. Also, I ponder whether places I once knew are still the same places.Imagine you go back to your beloved Surrey, to the exact place where you took that photograph. I bet you'll be able to find that place. It will undoubtedly have changed, I'm sure. Vegetation will have changed, maybe there will be some urban sprawl previously unknown to that landscape. Plus, that – if you look at things relatively in the Einstein way – our planet and our whole solar system, not to mention the entire galaxy, is now situated in an entirely different place in the universe.Everything's changed.Now is it still the same landscape in the same place? Are you still the same?Of course not – yet of course you are. Depending.Need to ponder further – thanks for getting me started. Or sorry for having started filling up your blogspace with my ramblings.
". A beautiful landscape, but by no means uniquely beautiful. It used to be so. Much of my early adolescence revolved about that land where I roamed again and again, and my earliest deep and remembered thoughts derive from that time."My dear friend Richard,An open landscape that allowed your imagination, your mind to spread and expand and share with us the fascinating way that you can see the wind blowing. Some will see the wind throwing useless dirty papers in a corner, you take the wind and you transform it to art. Thank you for that :up:
Yes, well written. And once again I was reminded of Thomas' "Fern Hill." Myself, I usually think of it as an evolution through the years, so that we are different as time goes on but what we are, what we were, is always there also. Yesterday I was noticing the wrinkles on the backs of my hands. And yet the DNA is the same, and they are still the same hands that played with my little cars and trucks when I was a kid. To quote the song…"Thanks for the memories" Richard.
"Yesterday I was noticing the wrinkles on the back of my hands"Ed,I was wrong !don't visit that eye doctor too often!!did I tell you that we love that DNA of yours that makes so enjoyable ?? :up:
I don't know where to e-mail Miss Scarlett my hat photo. Maybe she'll find my blog and fall in love with me. :)But to be honest, I'd rather Clint Eastwood found my blog and decided to make a movie out of one of my stories and paid me a lot of money. That would actually be better. :pingu:
My wonderful DNA… Ha! 😆 Thanks, Angeliki.Actually, the skin cells on my hands these days are pretty cool looking. They remind me of some sort of strange, Pre-Cambrian plant cells.
:up:
"Actually, the skin cells on my hands these days are pretty cool looking"I am glad to know,Scarlett always in her interviews mentions how important hands are to her :lol:P.S.did you mail her the "Fedora picture" yet??now you can kill me ! 😆
I'd rather Clint Eastwood found my blog and decided to make a movie out of one ………..DID some body say Clint Eastwood ??:heart: :heart: :heart: :heart: He is a brilliant mind !I hope he does !! It will be money at the bank !! :up:Scarlett can have a small role , let's not be unfair !! 😆
Thanks for your comments and appreciation, good people! :)I think Clint would make a very good movie with Pat Maginess as protagonist. Let's hope he stops by!
Unbelievable. I spend years and years, and I don't know how many thousands of dollars, in therapy trying to get back to that original little girl I used to be before all of life's trash piled in on top of her, and here you guys are talking about how you've grown up and moved on.What's it all about, Alfie?(Who in the hell is Alfie, anyway?):whistle::lol:Great post, Richard!:up:
Thank you, Stardancer! Don't worry – you have to go back to go on, so you are well on your way!Alfie is best known as the anti-hero of the film of the same name, acted superbly by Michael Caine (one of my favorite actors). He's essentially a totally mercenary womanizer who is forced finally to confront the bitter consequences of his rakish ways. Great song too, a Bacharach-David composition recorded by Cher, Cilla Black and Dionne Warwick amongst others. My favorite tune of theirs outside of "The Look of Love".Probably more there than you ever really wanted to know…:)
:sing: "The Look of Love is in your eyesa look your smile can't disguise…":sing:(I probably just ripped those lyrics to shreds…):DI think I've seen that movie–"Alfie"–at least of couple of times. Caine rocks!:up:
Yes! :yes: I shall doze off happily with 'The Look of Love' as a lullaby!:)Good night all! :zzz:
it's great to start my day reading lyrics….Stardancer and musickna gave me the first happy note of the day!!!Thanks and have a great week ahead 🙂