online: 27 february 2015
modified: 27 february 2015
12 february 2015 winter afternoon
...everything seems cold today... with little wind but near freezing
temperature... and very few people... the trees particularly seem frozen
again... after several days of warmer air and signs of spring... but as
i write here (in one of the wildest bits of forest) all seems cold and
still and bare and dry and is telling me to stay at home or even in bed
editing the last two entries that are waiting for attention... cough
cough (for discretion not
malady... i seldom catch a cold these days... )
...but now i'm adapting to this winter day i might as well continue...
aha!....
soon cold hand and fading light will drive me back to artificially
heated/lit places... but while i can write here in the forest i may as
well attend to external sights and sounds as well as to
thoughts spontaneous...
...tree trunks seem dark and branches grey... quiet but steady sounds of
traffic 100 m away... no creatures that i've noticed... a sudden breeze
quite cold... the fluorescent lights of bus interior passing by on the
straight road through the forest... breeze ceases and the trees look
still and cold as formerly... as second walker passes since i sat here
say 15 to 20
minutes ago... like everyone he's well wrapped up and walking
briskly...
...looking upward i see the cold grey sky beyond and through a pattern
of twigs and branches too complex to describe... but as beautiful as any
natural sight... and no living leaves nor insects birds or squirrels...
but for a single squeak just now repeating as i write... from wren or
robin perhaps 10 metres to my right as i sit on a seat facing south
west... the direction from which comes this wintry weather today...
though it could be changing to south east... too slow to tell...
and still in my thoughts is the experience of a few days ago when sight
of a book of Marcel Duchamp's 'notes for the large glass'* led me to
revived attention to his unexpected notes and life more interesting than
anything... but no more interesting than everything... that in light of
Duchamp's works looks even more new and wonderful...
and now as hand gets too cold... and light too dim... i get up to go...
...and now hours later i'm warm again and writing... and also fed...
*Marcel Duchamp, Notes and Projects for The Large Glass, selected,
ordered and with an introduction by Arturo Schwarz, translated by George
H Hamilton, Cleve Gray and Arturo Schwarz, Thames and Hudson, London 1969
homepage
© 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008,
2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 john chris jones
You may transmit this text to anyone for any
non-commercial purpose if you include the copyright line and this notice
and if you respect the copyright of quotations.
If you wish to reproduce any of this text
commercially please send a copyright permission request to jcj at
publicwriting.net