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owlWhy is it that a watery golden winter sunset over the Antrim hills, seen across a railway yard and Belfast's cramped red brick terraces, can stab me with a longing for I-know-not-what? So much that it aches.
It's a sort of aesthetic or intellectual shudder, is the nearest I can describe it, often but not always accompanied by a shiver between the shoulder-blades. It has been inspired by music (not just classical, the Star Wars and Schindler's List soundtracks do it too), when I first read the Ride of the Rohirrim, by the contemplation of interstellar space (not while I was actually doing astrophysics, I add), by seeing the Mournes far off with the light of the sea behind them that makes those great granite bulks look like tissue paper shapes on the horizon.
The after-effect of it was an emotional high that lasted all the way home, despite reading Quantum Theory and being in NIR's filthy and decrepit rolling stock. Standing in the space between the carriages with the train rocking around me, the fresh wind rushing through the top of the window and the drub-a-drub of the wheels--there is no air like that in Belfast. And the fields: vivid green of winter barley, faded green of grass and palid stubble. I miss the country, and this evening I remembered why; because it has a window to eternity.
It's a sort of aesthetic or intellectual shudder, is the nearest I can describe it, often but not always accompanied by a shiver between the shoulder-blades. It has been inspired by music (not just classical, the Star Wars and Schindler's List soundtracks do it too), when I first read the Ride of the Rohirrim, by the contemplation of interstellar space (not while I was actually doing astrophysics, I add), by seeing the Mournes far off with the light of the sea behind them that makes those great granite bulks look like tissue paper shapes on the horizon.
The after-effect of it was an emotional high that lasted all the way home, despite reading Quantum Theory and being in NIR's filthy and decrepit rolling stock. Standing in the space between the carriages with the train rocking around me, the fresh wind rushing through the top of the window and the drub-a-drub of the wheels--there is no air like that in Belfast. And the fields: vivid green of winter barley, faded green of grass and palid stubble. I miss the country, and this evening I remembered why; because it has a window to eternity.
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Date: 2004-01-23 09:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-01-24 12:42 am (UTC)wow, i love the design of your journal!
Date: 2004-01-24 01:06 am (UTC)ur journal looks fantastic! how did you change the look so much! for example, i didn't know it was possible to change the design of the comments! looks great and your journal looks fun!
Re: wow, i love the design of your journal!
Date: 2004-01-24 02:21 am (UTC)