Abigail Thomas, Anne Dillard: Three

I like how she’s figured out a way to describe what I notice and have noticed but was seemingly unable to define in a way that if someone asked me what I’ looking at I would have to give an unsatisfactory partial answer that seemed to only touch on 1% of what I was looking at. And 1% of not just what I’m looking at but by seeing it, the entirety of my response and attention.

The passages: “much later in the day came the long slant of light that means good walking.” And “If the day is fine, any walk will do; it all looks good. Water in particular looks its best, reflecting blue sky in the flat, chopping it into the graveled shallows and white chute and foam in the riffles.”

I see the “long slant of light that comes later in the day and that means good walking.” Our laundry room, kitchen and my room catches the noon till westerly light that comes in. And the sky will be blue and bright and sunny or will have at most half the sky with white clouds which contrast the blue very well. Most mornings now at home during breaks from school are spent inside. I’m in the house I wake up and move towards the warmer places of the house where the heating is hooked up, which excludes my bedroom and the room that I tend to sleep in the most. I’ll be in the kitchen drinking coffee and throughout the morning, be going through very lazy and slow motion morning rituals. Then the afternoon and with it the sun to the west and I’ll perceive the fields, and trees are in good lighting and I’ll go out for a walk or just sunning where I can see birds and where I can’t see the road or other houses.
Also the fewer times I’ve gone to rivers, or to Lake Anna or its reservoir and had moments were I’m on the banks, or boats and its very beautiful, I don’t want to move, but I feel the change ongoing (rotation continuing day into night, regardless) as I stand, more so than ever at any other time. During those moments I see “water particularly looking its best, reflecting the blue sky, chopping it into gravel shallows and white chute and foam in the riffles.” And I just though of something: that’s my screen saver that I haven’t brought myself to change.