Early last year, Caroline, the younger daughter of Friend Who Knows Too Much, and I had a long discussion based upon a statement by American novelist, professor, Pulitzer and Nobel prize winner Toni Morrison contained on Caroline's blog. The quote was from her 1981 book Tar Baby.
“At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough. You don’t need
to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.”
This arose partly because of my incessant desire to record on camera everything that I see that I feel I would like either to show other people or look at again myself in the future. That in turn arises partly from the fact that I don't have an ability to hold images in my memory. If I see something I have to commit it to words and hope that I'll remember them and that they might trigger some recollection. It always astounds me when people describe scenes in great detail from memory.
I'd not really been able to accept the statement until fairly recently when various things have happened which have been such that I've just stood in awe and accepted the moment for what it was. Ironically I can remember the feeling of utter joy but I can't recall the triggers.
However the premise was tested again a few days ago when I was standing at the kitchen window and realised that not more than metre and a half away a mouse was climbing up the long stalks of grass, grabbing a head of seeds and falling off and starting up the next stalk. I grabbed the camera but a combination of the closeness, poor light, the fact that I was shooting through a window and that the stalks of grass were all competing with one another for the automatic focus (which takes too long to turn off and use manually) proved too much for me before he gave up and moved on.
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