I bought this book a while ago for a friend, sadly I never got a chance to hand it over... i seem to have a growing collection of things I've gotten for people over the years... life is sad like that, people come and go so often, sometimes so unpredictably, and then you're without, but its nice to have things that remind you of them, a museum of things...
I recently started reading weatherland, it's an illuminating and a beautifully written book, an immense anthology of weather through the eyes of writers and artists, from virginia woolf to keats... it starts with an account from the author, she relays her experience of spending a few days watching the changing light and water in a small village in the south downs not far from alfriston...
weather.... i love the weather. especially english weather- as unpredictable as it is maddening, our weather is so varied - the rain, the wind, the lightning and thunder, sunshine on a cloudless day, grey clouds on a sunless day, moody skies, glorious sunsets and dramatic technicolour sunrises, vague heavy twilights that fade out ever so slowly, the fog, the mist, the stars on a clear night - there's so much beauty to be found in weather- so much healing. A perfectly painted canvas above, it spreads across the page, it reminds me of the greatest and most magnificent artist, the creator of all things, Allah swt.... it reminds me of the passing and transient nature of all things, the weather changes, as do most things in life, even seemingly fixed and certain things, and there's a beauty in that too... in understanding that and appreciating the weather, every hue in every sky... droplets of dew on a blade of grass, the rising purple fog on a baron field, there's so much comfort and beauty to be sought in watching the weather, being part of it, there's so much inspiration...
It was really windy this evening, gusts blew through me, the weeping willows swayed wildly under the purple sunset sky, the birds flew up above, the river ebbed and flowed, the weather changed again- there was stillness (outside and within). lately things have been hard, I think maybe for everyone. I don't know. But it's so nice after being sick for so long to be able to breathe again (literally), to wander and to watch the weather and to find peace simply in being inside of it, to feel a sense of relief and a joy I can't begin to put to words- the gold light, a rainbow from a bus window, the drops of water that cling to it, the cosmos that lie therein...
at the museum where I work, I've been looking for weather too, clouds etched in ceramics, skies painted in oil, constable's and turner's... When life feels so scatty and dark and you begin to feel hopeless, sometimes it's so nice simply to pull yourself out of everything and to just watch the weather change, and let it inside of you- let is wash away and blow away, and burn away, everything that pollutes your heart, mind and soul....
Here's a photo of a sunset I saw yesterday and some passages from the book....
