Welcome to Day 30 of 31 Days of A Sense of Place.
*
“The muddiness of the self
Can be forgiven, almost forgotten,
In the clarity of late October.” — C. G. Hanzlicek, from “Mystery” (2001)
*
It would be a shame to do this 31-day challenge during the month of October in northern New England and not celebrate the beauty of autumn here. (All photos taken in New Hampshire unless otherwise noted. Banner photo is of Quechee Gorge, VT, 20 Oct. 2015.)
*
*
“In the never, still arriving, I find you
again: blue absence keeps knowledge alive,
makes of October an adjusted lens.
The days have almost no clouds left.”— Adrienne Rich, from “Dwingelo” (1969)
*
*
“For many years, I have been moved by the blue at the far edge of what can be seen, that color of horizons, of remote mountain ranges, of anything far away. The color of that distance is the color of an emotion, the color of solitude and of desire, the color of there seen from here, the color of where you are not. And the color of where you can never go.” ― Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost
*
*
Here’s to blue horizons and blue absence, cloudless days of clarity, the lens of October that focuses on the solitude and desire of the never, still arriving.
*
Thanks for checking in. Be sure to see what the other 31 Dayers are writing about.
*
This project is a bit like Wallace Stevens’ poem Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird, in that I’m writing about a sense of place from vantage points that may not obviously connect with each other. I’m not going to attempt to tie them together. In the end, these 31 days of looking at a sense of place may overlap, contradict, form a whole, or collapse like a flan in a cupboard, as Eddie Izzard would say. That remains to be seen. Thanks for stopping by.
Amazing colours!