Ever had one of those, 'One day I'd like to do that", thoughts?
Something along that line for me, was to one day take a trip to Vermont in 'peak season', as they say in New England. Well I did it and now have had time to wonder why I'd always wanted to do it. I understand more easily why I wanted to see things like the Grand Canyon or Uluru. There's a size and scale aspect as well as a uniqueness about them that can only be experienced on site.
Autumn scenes seem to me to be different. I saw some great fall color in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Canada in 91. Have done so more recently, so why New England? Was it different?
Vermont did have a lot of hills. They do have a different mix of trees to other parts of this country. We stayed in a comfortable house in the Green Mountains near the Mad River Glen Ski Area. The Mad River itself looked calm. I think it was when I took a walk back down the mountain one evening that I realised how appealing the area was. It was completely quiet except for the sound of leaves drifting from branches and resting on the road and ground around me. There were lots of falling leaves. The sound was like wind blowing, yet I felt no air move. There was a sort of disconnect between what I heard and felt. Yet what I saw was a riot of color. Lots of orange and red and yellow swathes of light as the afternoon sun reflected through the trees and on the falling leaves. I thought of the death of each single leaf and the brightness of its fall. I thought of Les Murray's poem about the sounds of an axefall in the Australian bush. What is it to be a witness? Can I re-present this experience in my mind later any better than a calendar shot? Can any experience truly be shared? And what is it now but a memory, something faded and diminished because my senses cannot recall it in total. What do I feel when I look at a photo? Something of the cool air on my skin and the vivid color before my eyes.
And now, much later, what to make of a place that was nature in flux. Does it differ in memory in any way from say my vision of the side of a mountain in the Grampians after the bushfires when the first flush of green burst from the black trunks of gums?
What it leaves me with, is an urge to just get out there. To be in nature. It is always different, always a new light/hue/sound/feel. And the best part is how inconsequential I feel amongst it all. We may be destroying a lot of it, but whenever I venture into a totally natural landscape I feel witness to something larger than myself. Perhaps it's enough to be thinking of my place in the scheme of things.
Something along that line for me, was to one day take a trip to Vermont in 'peak season', as they say in New England. Well I did it and now have had time to wonder why I'd always wanted to do it. I understand more easily why I wanted to see things like the Grand Canyon or Uluru. There's a size and scale aspect as well as a uniqueness about them that can only be experienced on site.
Autumn scenes seem to me to be different. I saw some great fall color in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Canada in 91. Have done so more recently, so why New England? Was it different?
Vermont did have a lot of hills. They do have a different mix of trees to other parts of this country. We stayed in a comfortable house in the Green Mountains near the Mad River Glen Ski Area. The Mad River itself looked calm. I think it was when I took a walk back down the mountain one evening that I realised how appealing the area was. It was completely quiet except for the sound of leaves drifting from branches and resting on the road and ground around me. There were lots of falling leaves. The sound was like wind blowing, yet I felt no air move. There was a sort of disconnect between what I heard and felt. Yet what I saw was a riot of color. Lots of orange and red and yellow swathes of light as the afternoon sun reflected through the trees and on the falling leaves. I thought of the death of each single leaf and the brightness of its fall. I thought of Les Murray's poem about the sounds of an axefall in the Australian bush. What is it to be a witness? Can I re-present this experience in my mind later any better than a calendar shot? Can any experience truly be shared? And what is it now but a memory, something faded and diminished because my senses cannot recall it in total. What do I feel when I look at a photo? Something of the cool air on my skin and the vivid color before my eyes.
And now, much later, what to make of a place that was nature in flux. Does it differ in memory in any way from say my vision of the side of a mountain in the Grampians after the bushfires when the first flush of green burst from the black trunks of gums?
What it leaves me with, is an urge to just get out there. To be in nature. It is always different, always a new light/hue/sound/feel. And the best part is how inconsequential I feel amongst it all. We may be destroying a lot of it, but whenever I venture into a totally natural landscape I feel witness to something larger than myself. Perhaps it's enough to be thinking of my place in the scheme of things.
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