Whenever I walk in a city, I find it remarkable how few people look up. It is here that it is noticeable, simply because there are so many others to observe but, when you are out in nature, whether in the mountains, the forests, or on the coast, it is often the same. The majority seem to have forgotten to look to the skies, look to the ridgelines, observe the clouds and the movement of the air, or watch the tops of trees.
Thank you Alexander. I loved this. A beautiful attentive piece.
"And then, in breaking our world, we broke ourselves. This was always the irony, always the issue—I wonder if things might have been different." This is a question I ponder a lot. I've found solace (of a sort) in Graeber and Wengrow's book The Dawn Of Everything were they describe a world that was different, for millennia, where the mindset actively recognised and resisted the egocentric tendencies that we platform today.
And, when I read your writing I think that things ARE different, because although breaking has been done, it isn't "we" that broke things, but a peculiar type of social structure that has formed around us. But within that madness is a thriving, kind and attentive human compassion for the world bieng expressed as strongly as it ever was. Thanks.
This really is truly powerful Alex, I applaud your ability to remain dignified when writing of this broken world. I struggle so tend to leave it aside in my writing. I could pull many lines from this piece that profoundly touched me in the way you have addressed something that is so desperately out of our control… or is it? We who notice never stop trying do we…?
As quoted by by John Stuart Mill, who said in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
We, the wanderers, the wonderers that become more numerous by day, will never not show compassion or understanding and that can never be anything but good!
Something else you’ve reminded me of—do you know the album Lost in the Cedar Wood by Johnny McFlynn and Robert MacFarlane? One of my favorite songs is Ferryman, and this is second verse:
For the stone ones and broken, my sadness is woken
The sea roads are mistaken
So stand by the hail, with a shark for a sail
We grow weak and frail
And with arms made of granite, in a blaze of the gannets
The first time I saw razorbills on the Welsh coast and realized I was seeing relatives of the extinct great auk I was beside myself. I love their compactness and sleek matte charcoal coloring.
I love city walking especially in areas of older buildings that have been repurposed one or more times giving the street an almost organic feel. This interest includes trying to find the natural lay of the land and its gradients that may not have been erased yet by urbanization. I walked Florida Avenue in Washington DC last year which was once called Boundary Street because it did in fact mark the line between city and the surrounding country, in one direction you looked downhill towards the rivers and in the other you looked up (sometimes steeply) to the hills that surrounded the city offering space for “country” homes in the cooler area up from the river’s edge.
I remember watching the skuas fly during one of our visits to Orkney, I thought they were remarkable fliers. We didn’t get close enough to be dived on, but that reminds me that during that visit to Orkney and its birds I recalled how many of their names I learned as a boy building plastic model airplanes of British planes that took so many names from these birds. The Skua to me was the Blackburn Skua, a not terribly successful dive bomber for the Royal Navy.
Ah, the bonxies - I too have had to walk along with my camera tripod held aloft to prevent being smacked by those birds on St Kilda and at Hermaness, Unst. And they're so big! Arctic terns are quick to dive bomb too.
Puffins are my favourite - they are so characterful and entertaining to watch. I'm not overly fond of birds if they come near me, at a distance they're fine, but I spent a happy few hours sat at Hermaness with puffins wandering around me, ducking in and out of their burrows. In fact, I sat in the same place so long I ended up with a puffin on my boot with a little group surrounding him - luckily, I had a fairly wide-angle lens on my camera and was able to get a shot of it.
Watching gannets fish is incredible; they're like rapiers entering the water. I've been lucky to witness it up close - what an experience.
Can't say the overpowering stench of guano is one of my favourite smells, lol.
Looking up - out on my bike one day I happened to look up to see an osprey flying over with a fish in its talons.
Everything you write speaks to my heart. It's hard to pick a faourite bird. I love them all, or at least, most. Probably chickadees are my favourite. They're such friendly little people, and they come to the window to remind me to refill the feeder when it's empty. I love the cardinals, like a flame against the sombre green of the cedars in winter. They sing about how beautiful the world is: Purty, purty, purty. I love the hawks, soaring on the wind; the goldfinches with their trilling song; the sparrows in their neat business suits with somethimes a jaunty red or white cap (we have many varieties of sparrow here).
Do I look up? More than I should, probably. I've had a few broken bones to testify to not watching where I set my feet. I like to read the future in the sky: the colour of the clouds, what direction they're moving; what kind they are and how high up. And stars. I just wish I could see them more clearly. I try to track the progress of the planets across the heavens, too.
Thank you Alexander. I loved this. A beautiful attentive piece.
"And then, in breaking our world, we broke ourselves. This was always the irony, always the issue—I wonder if things might have been different." This is a question I ponder a lot. I've found solace (of a sort) in Graeber and Wengrow's book The Dawn Of Everything were they describe a world that was different, for millennia, where the mindset actively recognised and resisted the egocentric tendencies that we platform today.
And, when I read your writing I think that things ARE different, because although breaking has been done, it isn't "we" that broke things, but a peculiar type of social structure that has formed around us. But within that madness is a thriving, kind and attentive human compassion for the world bieng expressed as strongly as it ever was. Thanks.
This really is truly powerful Alex, I applaud your ability to remain dignified when writing of this broken world. I struggle so tend to leave it aside in my writing. I could pull many lines from this piece that profoundly touched me in the way you have addressed something that is so desperately out of our control… or is it? We who notice never stop trying do we…?
As quoted by by John Stuart Mill, who said in 1867: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.”
We, the wanderers, the wonderers that become more numerous by day, will never not show compassion or understanding and that can never be anything but good!
Something else you’ve reminded me of—do you know the album Lost in the Cedar Wood by Johnny McFlynn and Robert MacFarlane? One of my favorite songs is Ferryman, and this is second verse:
For the stone ones and broken, my sadness is woken
The sea roads are mistaken
So stand by the hail, with a shark for a sail
We grow weak and frail
And with arms made of granite, in a blaze of the gannets
We row off this planet
Ferryman, ferryman
Carry my memory on
Out to the island
On the horizon
Following the path to the sun
I mentioned this in a Note comment but have you read Parable of the Sower?
The first time I saw razorbills on the Welsh coast and realized I was seeing relatives of the extinct great auk I was beside myself. I love their compactness and sleek matte charcoal coloring.
I love city walking especially in areas of older buildings that have been repurposed one or more times giving the street an almost organic feel. This interest includes trying to find the natural lay of the land and its gradients that may not have been erased yet by urbanization. I walked Florida Avenue in Washington DC last year which was once called Boundary Street because it did in fact mark the line between city and the surrounding country, in one direction you looked downhill towards the rivers and in the other you looked up (sometimes steeply) to the hills that surrounded the city offering space for “country” homes in the cooler area up from the river’s edge.
Beautiful and powerful writing -- thank you.
I remember watching the skuas fly during one of our visits to Orkney, I thought they were remarkable fliers. We didn’t get close enough to be dived on, but that reminds me that during that visit to Orkney and its birds I recalled how many of their names I learned as a boy building plastic model airplanes of British planes that took so many names from these birds. The Skua to me was the Blackburn Skua, a not terribly successful dive bomber for the Royal Navy.
Ah, the bonxies - I too have had to walk along with my camera tripod held aloft to prevent being smacked by those birds on St Kilda and at Hermaness, Unst. And they're so big! Arctic terns are quick to dive bomb too.
Puffins are my favourite - they are so characterful and entertaining to watch. I'm not overly fond of birds if they come near me, at a distance they're fine, but I spent a happy few hours sat at Hermaness with puffins wandering around me, ducking in and out of their burrows. In fact, I sat in the same place so long I ended up with a puffin on my boot with a little group surrounding him - luckily, I had a fairly wide-angle lens on my camera and was able to get a shot of it.
Watching gannets fish is incredible; they're like rapiers entering the water. I've been lucky to witness it up close - what an experience.
Can't say the overpowering stench of guano is one of my favourite smells, lol.
Looking up - out on my bike one day I happened to look up to see an osprey flying over with a fish in its talons.
Everything you write speaks to my heart. It's hard to pick a faourite bird. I love them all, or at least, most. Probably chickadees are my favourite. They're such friendly little people, and they come to the window to remind me to refill the feeder when it's empty. I love the cardinals, like a flame against the sombre green of the cedars in winter. They sing about how beautiful the world is: Purty, purty, purty. I love the hawks, soaring on the wind; the goldfinches with their trilling song; the sparrows in their neat business suits with somethimes a jaunty red or white cap (we have many varieties of sparrow here).
Do I look up? More than I should, probably. I've had a few broken bones to testify to not watching where I set my feet. I like to read the future in the sky: the colour of the clouds, what direction they're moving; what kind they are and how high up. And stars. I just wish I could see them more clearly. I try to track the progress of the planets across the heavens, too.
Your story at the end reminds me of one of my own. https://myscribblings.substack.com/p/the-day-the-world-broke