Needed this terribly today (so much loss, but also: an excuse to revisit McGuire's Here). I am glad you put your hand up for that painting and are now sharing it with us.
This piece shimmers with lack… And with abundance. I am savoring the beauty of the way you have put together sentences here and the whole structure of this piece. What a gift to go into this season of darkness… Thank you.
Absolutely scrumptious. I'm contemplating the act of crawling into bed in a few moments to read my book for a little while (sleep won't come for some time yet, I'm sure) so this was a nice segue, from the living room sofa to the comfort of my sleeping quarters. Sigh. Maybe I'll read another one of your notebook pages before I make my move...
This is so poignant, and I think about trees in this way often. There are trees in my local arboretum that I've become attached to but which I've watched slowly succumbing to fungal parasites and in some ways I'm glad I'm moving so as not to see them eventually come down. But then I wonder if that sentimentality is just cluttering my brain, since I know full well that nature is ultimately all flux. And yet I value these place-relationships and their specificity, too. Very human of me I guess. (I have a post in the works about my relationship with the arboretum where I'm trying to process these questions.)
I hadn't heard of the book Here but I immediately want to own it.
There is something about this post, the writing and your images, that harkens back to another time, a long-ago time, when time and thoughts were expansive, when sitting with one’s thoughts for long periods and observing what is right in front of one - a willow, a bridge, a painting - evoked long thoughts. I adore this post, and that you bought the lonely painting and treasure it, and that you share all this beauty with us. Merci, cherie.
Here's to the soul of beloved trees and surprise paintings and the emptiness of a dinner chair...and the air between them, neither here nor there...inextricably swirling about, xx
The idea of “accidentally’ buying a painting at an auction, where it ostensibly takes even more conscious and concerted effort than usual to purchase any item, is so wonderfully paradoxical: at once, seemingly impossible—or at least improbable—and yet all too likely; a capsule of the half-conscious, half-unwitting impulse that connected you to that painting.
It seems to me that you manage, in this, to capture that reaction prior to or separate from intention and will that can shape so much of our response to art, or images, or spaces. And then you draw us readers persuasively in as you set up the idea of simultaneity of spaces (and experiences) across time, the palimpsest of layers that we build up without realizing.
Just love how you weave these together, having won me over initially with the playful surprise and apparent contradiction of that first assertion. Fabulous.
Among the many thoughts your essay brought me was to wonder how many thousands of people passed that vantage point illustrated by de Baugy, but didn’t see the peace and beauty that you saw. Surely many hundreds did see it; and now we can all see it. Thank you. It brought me comfort for my Terrible Thing, I hope you can find comfort for yours.
Needed this terribly today (so much loss, but also: an excuse to revisit McGuire's Here). I am glad you put your hand up for that painting and are now sharing it with us.
Wishing you well.
🌳💙✨
What a gorgeous essay. Thank you for writing it.
Thank you for reading!
This piece shimmers with lack… And with abundance. I am savoring the beauty of the way you have put together sentences here and the whole structure of this piece. What a gift to go into this season of darkness… Thank you.
Thank you Maia 💜
Great
Absolutely scrumptious. I'm contemplating the act of crawling into bed in a few moments to read my book for a little while (sleep won't come for some time yet, I'm sure) so this was a nice segue, from the living room sofa to the comfort of my sleeping quarters. Sigh. Maybe I'll read another one of your notebook pages before I make my move...
This is so poignant, and I think about trees in this way often. There are trees in my local arboretum that I've become attached to but which I've watched slowly succumbing to fungal parasites and in some ways I'm glad I'm moving so as not to see them eventually come down. But then I wonder if that sentimentality is just cluttering my brain, since I know full well that nature is ultimately all flux. And yet I value these place-relationships and their specificity, too. Very human of me I guess. (I have a post in the works about my relationship with the arboretum where I'm trying to process these questions.)
I hadn't heard of the book Here but I immediately want to own it.
Thanks for commenting Anne, and Here is definitely worth it.
This is so graceful. Thank you.
There is something about this post, the writing and your images, that harkens back to another time, a long-ago time, when time and thoughts were expansive, when sitting with one’s thoughts for long periods and observing what is right in front of one - a willow, a bridge, a painting - evoked long thoughts. I adore this post, and that you bought the lonely painting and treasure it, and that you share all this beauty with us. Merci, cherie.
Merci. It's sad to think that doing this kind of thing, sitting, looking, thinking, could become rare.
It's not rare if you and I are doing it.
Here's to the soul of beloved trees and surprise paintings and the emptiness of a dinner chair...and the air between them, neither here nor there...inextricably swirling about, xx
The idea of “accidentally’ buying a painting at an auction, where it ostensibly takes even more conscious and concerted effort than usual to purchase any item, is so wonderfully paradoxical: at once, seemingly impossible—or at least improbable—and yet all too likely; a capsule of the half-conscious, half-unwitting impulse that connected you to that painting.
It seems to me that you manage, in this, to capture that reaction prior to or separate from intention and will that can shape so much of our response to art, or images, or spaces. And then you draw us readers persuasively in as you set up the idea of simultaneity of spaces (and experiences) across time, the palimpsest of layers that we build up without realizing.
Just love how you weave these together, having won me over initially with the playful surprise and apparent contradiction of that first assertion. Fabulous.
Why thank you!
Among the many thoughts your essay brought me was to wonder how many thousands of people passed that vantage point illustrated by de Baugy, but didn’t see the peace and beauty that you saw. Surely many hundreds did see it; and now we can all see it. Thank you. It brought me comfort for my Terrible Thing, I hope you can find comfort for yours.
Thank you 🤍
Sigh! Nostalgia, Proust, daydreaming by the Seine. So much to think about.