Day 22

These Last Days Are A Blurr

One observation that old people make is that time passes faster as we get older. 

The summer that lasted forever between first and second grade now passes between nap time and dinner. How eager we were to make it last forever. How rapidly that eternal summer flew by.

The quickening passage of time applies now to these last days of our prolonged tour in London.  We are working on our last monthweeksdayshours.  Now we are packing and already the taxi is chugging up the street.

In that spirit I am sharing some photographs that embody the blur of time and the hopes of good intentions.

Ah, young love!  Remember early October in the Victoria Tower Gardens near Parliament? 

So long ago, October, when my son and his wife, Ian and Kristen, visited from Maine. The picture, taken at long distance with a zoom, captured . . . just . . . enough . . . of . . . the  . . . moment . . .

Some ideas for photographs seem better than they turn out.  See it, shoot it. I was looking for visible evidence of the past in the present, which is not all that hard to find in London.  My idea for a deeply significant shot of old pier pilings and scavangers on the Thames tidal flats looks less like London than a movie set or than nowhere in particular.  

Another good idea that I could not bring off, the image blurred, its distinctives lost. Incorrect focus or shakey hands?

Soon October ended, and November, and now the brief, dark, hurried days of winter are upon us.

On a recent walk from the Tate Modern toward the National Theatre along the South Bank, I thought to capture seasonal lights strung in the bare trees. They have a kind of mysterious beauty.  Like the season itself, which we will taste but not complete in London, the photograph is more an impression than clear rendering.

The blue blob on the left in the distance is the National Theatre. The mysterious dark figure to the right is my "other half," to quote the young woman who sells me newspapers and tops up my Oyster card, escaping from the shakey photographer into the dark night.

So has London been for us -- a blur, recognizable at times, indecipherable at others, but full of personally evocative and moving touch stones.

Such is this failed shot of St. Paul's Cathedral, using the "night" setting with its long exposure -- a memory-packed touch stone, an image that will trigger and store a dozen tellings.

A bright and vibrant time glowing in the foggy London night across the restless river.  That is London for us now.  It's not my childhood time frame, but then what do I remember of those childhood summers if not impressions blurred by distance and the vagueries of memory?