More specifically concerning: portland
A view (15)
point of view.
lacuna
thumb-twiddling
Over a year
houseplants
a realism
Frenchman’s dream
knees on a train
soporific
springtime and Cyprus
A view (18)
fog
The trouble with epigraphy. A fog has settled in for the winter and, although the café is warm and bright, the bustle and noise merely accentuate the drizzle and dark outside. It is my favorite time of year. It feels right to be inside, to be making things with my hands and reading books. Not […]
these days
These days I spend a lot of time crossing bridges. Partly because we moved across the river from practically everything we are interested in; partly because, well because my feet are getting itchy again. It’s amazing how deadlines work – one puts things off, doesn’t think about them, and then the time creeps up when […]
not at home
At home in the evening, planning escapades. The books read and unread gathering coffee stains and toast crumbs. The at one time unimaginable, commonplace. Things moving slowly. The sense of progress, though: gears turning, ticking well-oiled shiny. Intangible, unavoidable, inescapable. Backed into imagined corners that flatten and fade and open onto unexpected vantages. Yet continuance […]
mizzling
We find under the weather a layer of sun, wrapped tidily around that parcel of time we call today. The year therefore rounded itself as a receptacle of retarded knowledge – a cup brimming over with the sense that now at least she was learning. – Henry James, What Maisie Knew, ch. IX
another day
A view (22)
This I will miss.
emptied nest
Ain’t nobody here.
A view (38)
sunset, Portland.
A view (39)
sunrise, Portland
A view (40)
It rained most of the day.
pleasant & agreeable
It’s dreary out. He is a learned man, and has a power of college-books by heart: his greatest fault is, that he incessantly quotes passages from them in conversation, which is not agreeable to everybody. – Alain-Renée Lesage (Gil Blas, vol. 1, p. 149 (II.ix))1 Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d […]
undetectable
A down-graded storm. There are of course other things I should be doing, even other things I should be reading, but just at the moment detective stories seem to be what I want. They are amusing and plotty and charmingly shamefaced. There’s not a one that takes itself too seriously, not one that claims it […]
A view (41)
… and it’s still snowing. …it was his professional dullness he had recovered, the dullness that he had assumed long ago, when he was still shy, in order to mislead the people he had to talk to, and that had become an almost unconscious reflex. – Georges Simenon (Maigret Has Scruples, p. 46)
A view (44)
midday, Portland
A view (45)
evening, Portland.
and another thing
Eventually, it did snow.
tædium
It has been unexpectedly cold, and on that particularly evening we were preparing for a very cold weekend, with frost and potentially snow. The puddles from recent rains had frozen, which is a rare thing – if I had a better memory, I could probably count on one hand the number of times this has […]
praeterita
It has become the favored place to go for a stroll. It is quiet. The world passes through slowly, the shifting seasons providing the most dramatic changes – fallen branches, frost heaves, holly berries, and flowers in spring. One sets external concerns aside; even the most tenacious anxiety or care has been, by the time […]