Between the Betweens
Sometimes, just sometimes, the photographers work is to see the gaps and absences rather than the stuff cluttering the langscape. The sticky feeling of nothing.
Travel
Mouvances
Since moving to Newfoundland and Labrador, the idea of slow travel has been buzzing around my head like the floor plan of some great novel. Usually opting for the more “agonizing” of modes like the bus and the ferry to move across larger distances, it is often striking how much time is given to reflection. One is not constantly bustled about from one checkpoint to the next, from the security clearance to the gate and so on.
There are beautiful passages on speed and movement in Alessandro Baricco’s, “Cette Histoire-Là”. But a few passages form a recent read are creeping into the thinking pattern. More about destinations that speed, but at the same time needing a certain lingering of motion to process.
“S’il s’en va, au demeurant,
ce n’est nullement qu’il n’a pas été séduit par ce qu’il quitte; au contraire, c’est qu’il a tant aimé ce qu’il tient de connaître qu’il aspire à des contrées qui soient cela avec encore plus de rigueur, plus de consistance, plus de force: des contrées dont le pays des lacs ne serait en somme qu’un avant-goût édulcoré, une île ou un massif annonciateurs, un missus dominicus, un modèle réduit. Il aspire à l’original.” R. Camus, Loin, p.289