Real life is healthier if one gives it the holiday in unreality that is its due.
— Gaston Bachelard, Of Water and Dreams/ L’eau et les rêves
Reculer pour mieux sauter. The gist is to retreat from an obstacle so as to reflect, gather one’s forces, and begin anew—which assumes a level of continuity we haven’t exactly enjoyed in a while. And, anyway, all concepts, such as clarity and reality, are subject to interpretation, revision, and erosion. Last month’s dense morning fog was a helpful articulation of the past nine months. Oh, it’s been like this—fog is a literary trope for confusion and insularity, no surprise.
It’s cooler. The leaves have fallen. The colors were muted this year, apparently, due to warmer than usual climate—low temperatures above freezing encourage anthocyanin, a pigment found in red maples and other brightly colored plants. Through bare tree limbs, under a canopy of sun, it’s possible to see into the distance. The sun nourishes instead of depleting. Possibly because they’re everywhere, for thousands of miles, the trees seem less stark than sculptural, endlessly varied: oak, poplar, hickory, red maple, cypress, peeling sycamore.
November temperatures fluctuate between freezing and clement. We’ve stopped seeing turtles at the lake. When it gets cold, they don’t hibernate as frogs do but withdraw to the sediment at the bottom to preserve their energy, extracting oxygen from the water moving across the surface of their bodies. Even submerged, they’re keenly sensitive to reflections and light. All summer, on bright days, they floated in clusters, their heads poking up from the water’s surface. Closer to the bank, camouflaged in the shadows of trees and other flora, they gleaned our presence at the instant of eye contact and sank out of sight—as if to say, we gave you humans the benefit of the doubt, no longer.
I get it. Thank you.
At this stage, I can at least imagine a return to some version of normalcy. If we’re here . . . we’ve been fortunate.
So, how will we remember this once it’s really over? The philosopher Gaston Bachelard said, the same memory flows from different fountains. But, as we’ve learned, the uniqueness, and difference, of our experiences count. The task of recollection is to investigate our impressions and make sense. Will we?
Maybe the collective is more like a beehive: separated, separately productive, angry, but unified in the creation of artifacts of discontent, hope, and re-imagination. Someone said, unrest isn’t just a symptom, it’s a catalyst. We need each bee.
Speaking of wax, Socrates likened Memory to a waxed surface on which “images of a sort” are imprinted, and then embedded under newer layers of wax. But some part of the old message manages to bleed up to the surface. What we remember, we can use constructively “so long as the image remains; whatever is rubbed out or has not succeeded in leaving an impression we have forgotten and do not know.”* As someone who’s devoted time to interpreting period literature, I’m not immune to symbolism, or even magical thinking. But I’d like to think that as a culture, human and not, we’re edging closer to a better place to be with one another.
I took these photos out and about last month. My i-phone camera doesn’t do justice to the palette of colors.
Thank you sunlight!
- Paraphrase of Socrates taken from Mary Carruthers, The Book of Memory, (2008, 24).
- The translation of Bachelard is from Edith R. Farrell.
This. This respite you offer here. This “retreat from an obstacle so as to reflect, gather one’s forces, and begin anew,” this morning. All gratitude for your reflections, and sense of place proffered by your photographs.
Thanks for this perspective, Lisa. We’re still discovering what place this is, but it’s particularly communicative at this time of year.
This is haunting, invigorating and inspiring all at the same time, Greta. The prose and the images both wax and wane as the season itself performs it own moods of flourishing and diminishing
Thank you, Guy, for these poetic reflections.
i love pictures of the same place as the seasons change. I hope you find and photograph turtles as they are close to my heart
happy t giving Jud
Thanks, Judy. We’ll probably have to wait until next spring, latish, to see them again. Happy t.g. to you too!
I agree with what others have said already: your words and images create a lovely weave. Is this your first fall in North Carolina? I can’t remember– time seems swallowed up in the fog of Covid ;-).
I am guessing that you are well, since you continue to direct your attention toward beauty.
Sending hugs and love from Whidbey.
Susanne
It’s always good to hear from you, Susanne. We’ve been here for a little over a year, most of it under Covid restrictions. Getting out into nature makes it feasible.
As always your reflections are evocative, in both words and images. Wonderful contrast between the monocrhromatic fog and the sunlit autumn foliage.
Thanks, Dan. And won’t it be nice to get to the other side of this season . . .
Beautiful. Such an evocative blend of photos and words. Memory likened to a waxed surface is so perfect an image of the partial and obscuring erasure of what is past, like the fog in your photos. What memories are we drawing on now that inspire our present? And how imperfect are those memories? But does it matter – perhaps only what we mold them into for our present, and hopefully for a better future. Hmmm…..not sure where all that came from. Your blog inspires !!!! Big hugs.
Such thoughtful questions, Jane. We’re creatures of habit but I think the dialogues that have surfaced around and because of this pandemic will continue to shape the future. Even if we’re not out there, we can be actively withdrawn. Namaste!
Lovely thoughts and images, and fun facts about turtles.
Fog, a mental reflex to Carl Sandburg’s:
“The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.”
Like you, Greta, I hope the clearing brings us to a better place.
Thank you, Candace, and for reminding me of the poem. One day at a time . . .
This is a good reminder that COVID or no, this season is a good time for pulling in and reflecting. We have the time now we just need to make the intention to notice, notice what is going on inside and what that means. Thank you Greta –
Thank you, Christine. For me, this phase has helped to clarify our individual relationship to the larger process.