Back in my favourite local stamping ground. I don’t do a lot of bushwalking in the summer because of the bush fire risk, but this summer has been a little less dry than usual and I had a wee sliver of time between jobs to rush off to the mountains for peace and recovery. This gave me the chance to be out in the intense light and heat of the Australian summer and I’ve made a few sketches that try to share some of the shimmering and simmering. Not there yet, but they’re all part of a journey. And the journey is the destination.
What do you mean by “seedy”…..
Laurel: I can feel the simmering! Hey, are you the blogger who introduced me to the word flaneur? The flaneur, the passionate wanderer, emblematic of nineteenth-century French literature…I heard that word on thought of you~
Hi Laurel. Glad you like the work! That might have been me. It’s a reasonable description and a good word, although it does seem to have a “seedy” side. I first came across the word in a book called Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit. A great celebration of walking.
What do you mean by “seedy”….? ^.^
I read somewhere that some flaneurs (who were mostly men back then) simply followed a woman they thought was attractive and when she went into a shop or something, they’d wander on and follow another one. Seedy I guess means “disreputable”, “low life”… or something like that.
(Oh….yeesh, Right). Let’s agree that the modern flaneur, like yourself or me, flaneuring the countryside in your case, the woods in my case, is happily thriving. Wandering contemplatively…coming across sites that inspire the heart and spirit….never predictable…never disappointing…