Shadows and Reflections

I had to go up to London for work yesterday. It's rare for me to do that so it feels strange even though I grew up in London and have lived most of my life there. I realise, on the odd occasions I do go, how much I miss it - the buzz and bustle, the fascination of people on the Tube and on the streets, (I love people-watching!), the aliveness of everything, which is perhaps a bit of a strange thing to say about an urban setting populated with buildings, busy roads and only the odd plane tree and a changeful sky above the horizon to hint at nature's life force.

I do like living in the country - the space, both inside and outside, that I never had in London, the proximity of the natural rhythm of the seasons, the fact that you can see the stars at night in a properly dark blue sky that is not artificially lightened by millions of electric light bulbs but I must admit that I do find the bustle of the city energising and even among the anonymity of complete strangers there is not the sense of isolation you can get in the country. I am content with my own company in the metropolis in a way that I am not always, when I am on my own, in what is now home. I fear that at heart I am not really a country person, or not yet anyway!

 I certainly appreciate, far more now than when it was on my doorstep all the time, the buzzy momentum and activity that is palpable when I step off the train at Paddington. These things are a bit of a question of light and shade of course.  It's good to experience the contrast and to be aware of the shadow-side of both as well as the light-reflecting side of both. After all, I remind myself, isolation is alive and well in most cities and what is buzzy and energising today can easily become frenetic and stifling tomorrow, just as space and quiet in the country can be recreative and healing tomorrow as well as lonely today.

I have been thinking about shadows and reflections a lot this week. The way they show something that one doesn't always notice otherwise. I love John Henry Newman's epitaph for this reason - "Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem" - "Out of shadows and illusions into the truth". I love the sense that it gives of a life of quest and discovery and everything along the way being part of that. The "into" is important; it denotes a journey, a process, a becoming. Sometimes the shadows themselves help to show us the way to that becoming.

Here are a few pics snapped yesterday in Great Portland Street which play a bit with shadows and reflections. The first three are not double exposures although they look like it. They are simply taken in front of a plate glass window where I was meeting someone and the glass held the reflection from the pavement and across the road. The plate glass window belongs to Villandry - their cakes and patisserie, as you can see, are mouth-watering! I particularly liked the pink swirled meringue that you can't see very clearly in the third pic. It was beautifully marbled and has given me Ideas!

I like the way these pics somehow remind me that I am both someone who likes the cosmopolitan and the homely. And it doesn't have to be "either or". One can be at peace with being both a town mouse and a country mouse and grateful for what both settings can give.

 The next three were taken in the same place, seeing the welcome spring sunshine cast friendly shadows of passers-by on the plain canvas of the pavement. People just going about their business at lunchtime. Some on their own, some with others. The fact that the shadows lingered fractionally after a person had passed by, intensified that sense of companionability that I had just from being among others doing their own thing while I did mine. And the new brightness of the sunshine, seen in the clarity of the shadows, is a reminder that, wherever we find ourselves, the long days of winter are fading fast now and Spring is just around the corner. City-dwelling or country-living this is universally Good News!

Happy Weekend ...

wherever you are and whatever your preferred habitat!