There is a kind of light that balances all time. In summer, in the south, the light is constant for many hours and cannot be faulted or dimmed, adding a bright edge to everything. In the north-or conditions approaching it- the light and time flow together. A moment of absence, a drifting cloud, and the land is dark with shadow again. There is a late flaring of the light, the "late sublime" of an old man who sees that everything is beautiful, with its own particular charm. He looks out of his tall window-for how many more winters?-down towards some woman and thinks of his own youth, the windows of opportunity. Even regret can seem beautiful on the right stage, if your head is tilted at the right angle.

Hopper and the 4 o'clock feeling, the third hour in a row of silence between them. 

At Essex, in those black-bricked '60s towers, the great monolithic monuments to the disasters of socialism, the windows were sealed to prevent suicides. 

~~

(Photograph courtesy of R. Ghita)

~~

If I could write of light with such dark hands it would be an amazement..to who? No-one but myself.

There are words in large, unopened dictionaries that have fallen out of use. Perhaps only a handful of people in the whole world now know what these obscure, ancient and hard words mean. In a human heart, there are words...a dying language, or the last words on someone's lips.

"Why do we even need words?" little r asked. "I mean, why can't we just point to things?"

"Why are there different colours? why didn't God just make grey? But, little one, how would we see anything, if everything was blue for example?

"By their shape"

~~

What shape, what pattern is a life allowed to take today?

~

When you see as many faces as I do-in my profession, that is..why does that make me sound of dubious character!..you start to make connections: a lip here resembles one you saw fifteen years ago; a lethargic slouch is not so different from ___ from years ago. When was that? Maybe there are only five people in the whole world. But what becomes less familiar and stranger each day is your own face. Avoid mirrors, reflections, glances and glimpses at all costs. Think back to avoid the rich vein of betrayal on your hands, in your voice. 

Fidelity -- 

There are a few raindrops in the air today, a handful. When one lands on someone's forehead the person looks up to the sky in wonder and puzzlement. 

~

You read eleven pages of The White Room (via Charles, cb) and kept on getting it mixed up with Turtle Diary. Fables and stories. Something unreal to keep you going. Hasn't that always been the way?
But the way to what? And where would you go? Not here, with the window opened slightly, allowing the spring warmth in? You sort of remembered what you'd forgotten--wasn't that moment, too, a kind of window opening?