 Robert Adams: "Form in a picture is justified by our experience of wholeness (coherence) in life, and if we are to be convincingly reminded by art of such experience then the shape in art has to be believably tentative, as fragile as meaning seems to be in life, as problematic even as the future is . . ."
 Robert Adams wrote: "The job of the photographer . . . is not to catalogue indisputable fact but to try to be coherent about intention and hope." And he quotes Czeslaw Milosz as having described hope as "trust in the light that shines through earthly forms." Hope seems rather under siege these days (will 2020 never end?!), so part of my intention with these images is to allow some of that light to shine through in them.
 Next week the autumnal equinox arrives and so now sunrise comes later and further south seen from my window. And after seven months of staying in, days continue to seem more and more interchangeable—wearing many of us down. This morning it is raining so my walk will have to be delayed (although I wouldn't mourn a day when I didn't do the usual).
Again, Budbill wrote something comforting (to me, at least) about all of this: "Summer people gone. Kids back in school. Fall coming fast. Leaves turning . . . World getting quiet . . . Sweet Zen emptiness. Here again this year."  Sometimes when I awaken and face a new day, I feel overwhelmed by all that's going on. And then sometimes I wonder too why I continue to add posts to this blog—what's the point? But I remember what Michael Chabon wrote about finding and trying to show beauty—maybe the point is just to make this life we live now all bearable. So—a hint of autumn has been in the air these last few days. About such moments, David Budbill wrote:
"Low clouds and gray . . . The world gets emptier, more barren . . . Stillness, O stillness, this damp calm of autumn, this relinquishing, giving in . . . sweet melancholy, welcoming, opening, acceptance, receiving, this embrace of the quiet and the dark." Amidst all the anger and frustration and grief, amidst this dark and sweet melancholy there is beauty and even a little peace if we stay quiet enough to hear it. Rainy days, afternoon storms and sometimes even darkness at 3:30 PM. Meanwhile, the West Coast burns, and the Atlantic swirls. Late summer in contemporary USA.   Have a good holiday, everyone, and welcome to the end of summer (well, not here) Rilke:
"We set the pace. But this press of time-- take it as a little thing next to what endures. All this hurrying soon will be over. Only when we tarry do we touch the holy." |
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