I got up one morning about twenty years ago to find my neighborhood covered in fog. In a moment of inspiration I grabbed my camera and walked a few blocks to Prospect Park, where I took this photo. Like this week, I remember it being unseasonably warm. Winter was still hanging on, with Spring yet to arrive and certainly no buds on the trees to herald the change of seasons. The fog was magic, rolling through the hills and valleys of the park. Prospect Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, the same brilliant mind who created the better-known Central Park; but in Brooklyn he created a series of illusory landscapes designed to evoke the lost wilderness. Prospect Park is filled with vales and abrupt changes of scenery that reveal cleverly hidden lakes and groves. While the park is not surrounded by highrises like Central Park is, it's just as much an oasis in an utterly urban landscape. I remember how that fog bolstered the otherworldly illusion of it all. Tomorrow it's supposed to go back down to below freezing, but the jig is up. Winter's clutching at brittle naked branches. Time's up!
I really like that photo Ish - it tells a story.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how the caveman dealt with all this not having a weather station to keep droning on about... how cold...how warm...how wet...how dry.
I guess he just grabbed his club and took his usual walk - occasionally remembering his camera and perhaps leaving behind a photo similar to yours for the future generations to see.
Spring is soon...
Thanks Annie.
ReplyDeleteFunny you wondering about cavemen. I have often wondered about how people thought about the weather before TV & radio. Without a satellite map how would you know if a rainstorm was just a rainstorm or the advance tip of a coming hurricane? I guess the signs in nature are more detailed than us modern lazy people know to look for.
Friends of mine have a summer house up in the catskills: they made a friend up there who helps with the haying and chores. He's a local hunter & farmer: he always makes a prediction about what winter's gonna be like and he's always right.
I think it's 'environment-smarts' like 'street-smarts' if you live in a city. You become attuned to your environment if your 'life' depends upon it.
ReplyDeleteI often think of my great-grandfather who with his new bride by his side traveled from Arkansas to California in the 1850's via covered wagon.
No AAA maps, MacDonald's or Hilton's along the way.... how did they do it?