We make a mistake, says Seamus Heaney, if driving down a road between wind and water, overwhelmed by what we see, we assume we will see "it" better if we stop the car. "It" is there in the passage.
working in the space between here and there, Rebecca Solnit talks about this beautifully - "We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing. I wonder sometimes whether with a slight adjustment of perspective it could be cherished as a sensation on its own terms, since it is as inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance? If you can look across the distance without wanting to close it up, if you can own your longing in the same way that you own the beauty of that blue that can never be possessed? For something of this longing will, like the blue of distance, only be relocated, not assuaged, by acquisition and arrival, just as the mountains cease to be blue when you arrive among them and the blue instead tints the next beyond. Somewhere in this is the mystery of why tragedies are more beautiful than comedies and why we take a huge pleasure in the sadness of certain songs and stories. Something is always far away."
page 30-31 The Blue of Distance from A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
Thank you for this my well-read friend! x I am currently reading Solnit's Wanderlust book. I have read parts of her A Field Guide - and I think I read this prat but forgot it. Thank you for reminding me about the blue distance and the the blue longing. xo
working in the space between here and there, Rebecca Solnit talks about this beautifully -
ReplyDelete"We treat desire as a problem to be solved, address what desire is for and focus on that something and how to acquire it rather than on the nature and the sensation of desire, though often it is the distance between us and the object of desire that fills the space in between with the blue of longing. I wonder sometimes whether with a slight adjustment of perspective it could be cherished as a sensation on its own terms, since it is as inherent to the human condition as blue is to distance? If you can look across the distance without wanting to close it up, if you can own your longing in the same way that you own the beauty of that blue that can never be possessed? For something of this longing will, like the blue of distance, only be relocated, not assuaged, by acquisition and arrival, just as the mountains cease to be blue when you arrive among them and the blue instead tints the next beyond. Somewhere in this is the mystery of why tragedies are more beautiful than comedies and why we take a huge pleasure in the sadness of certain songs and stories. Something is always far away."
page 30-31 The Blue of Distance from A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit
Thank you for this my well-read friend! x
DeleteI am currently reading Solnit's Wanderlust book. I have read parts of her A Field Guide - and I think I read this prat but forgot it. Thank you for reminding me about the blue distance and the the blue longing. xo