January 19, 2000
Cold enough for you?My favorite answer is always “no, I like it about three degrees colder”, but you probably have your own riposte. No denying the cold, though; it’s sharp as any wit. Maybe it’s my asceticism, but I’m sort of enjoying it. I lament the Winter during every other season, the same way one worries about death only while living, (no authority on that one), but once it arrives, I find myself embracing this season of retraction. It’s as engaging as reality always is, or at least has the potential to be. The potential is realized through attention. Through repeated perception, I’ve realized that the cold is a good thing. The ground is hardening. Trees are protecting themselves, and resting. A heavy snow would top things off nicely.I’m convinced that the mild winters of the last couple of years have accelerated deterioration in the Park. The unfrozen ground suffers more damage, and bears less protective vegetation. In my recent walks, I’ve often felt that I was aggravating a sore spot with my tread. Much of the landscape seemed raw and exposed. We’ve bobbed along on the surface of Winter; a day in the twenties, another near sixty. This prolonged stretch is finally allowing cyclical seasonal habits to assert themselves. I took a walk through low degrees, and it was beautiful. Sunny, without much wind, if you dress right, it’s painless. Well, it was painless until I slipped on a slope, and twisted my knee. That frozen ground is unforgiving. Actually, I got disoriented shifting between binocular, camera and naked eyesight, amid the steeply tilted facets of the Ramble. A binocular makes you step forward, a camera, backwards. It’s easy to lose track of your feet, when you focus your attention through a prosthetic lens. It does bring home how provisional, and non-definitive, our vision is. The binocular reveals so much that it’s well worth the effort. The camera’s utility is less immediate, and it introduces Uncertainty Principle effects into the self documentation equation. By trying to record or communicate the nature of my experience of the Park, I change it, and risk losing sight of what it was that brought me here to begin with. And I keep trying to take pictures with the binocular. Some things just can’t be recorded, but that doesn’t mean they don’t happen. I guess that’s my challenge in attempting this page. Anyway, I just kept going on my sprained knee; typical macho Goddess worshiper. I’ve been limping, but improving daily. Now there are photos to deal with. We should have some relief from all this text around here soon, and with it, more specificity. As I write this, three to five inches of snow is predicted for tomorrow. I fear I won’t be able to check it out until Saturday, but the temperature’s not supposed to get above freezing, so it should stick around. Still, snow is best when fresh. There’s always my lunch hour... |
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"... Mr. Wilson's Arboretum - ... Actually, I got disoriented shifting between binocular, camera and naked eyesight, amid the steeply tilted facets of the Ramble ... Now there are photos to deal with ... ..." |