“It is through the power of observation, the gifts of eye and ear, of tongue and nose and finger, that a place first rises up in our mind; afterward it is memory that carries the place, that allows it to grow in depth and complexity. For as long as our records go back, we have … Continue reading Prespa: A Journey from Home
All journeys ask of us some substantial shift in perspective. To travel with any degree of interest in the unfamiliar means necessarily attuning yourself to such a variety of people, wildlife, landscapes, environments, languages and customs that the world feels irreversibly larger than any single measure of it could ever possibly contain. You learn a … Continue reading Learning a New Light
Wreathed in egret-white waves, the rippled hills of the coast glittered in hot light. The sky was a flawless blue, a near match for the glazed and glistening sea. We walked on warm sand, sinking into the smooth sweep of dunes that were slowly on the move, cartwheeling south with the wind and waves towards … Continue reading A Fragile Blue Edge
The lone and level sands stretch far away. - Percy Bysshe Shelley, from ‘Ozymandias’ Only the evening before, a friend had warned me about the shifting sands of the estuary should I try to get close to the stone, confessing her own driven desire to seek out the totems and talismans of the landscape as … Continue reading Where the River Meets the Sea
You’d be quite right in thinking that this isn’t part two of our journey to Szczecin in Poland. And rather than have you looking for it, or wondering whether I’ve deleted the subtitle of the previous post and therefore the obligation to write a follow-up, I’ll confess to not having written it. Not yet anyways. Much of … Continue reading Glimpsed, In Passing: 2011
Julian Hoffman 