enchantedness

I was half asleep on Friday night or Saturday morning and a strange image came to me of some sort of Roman arches in a quiet, probably Italian, countryside (probably full of old, bending olive trees planted in rows centuries ago). There was some sort of special harmony to this image. Of course the weather was just right. Not too cold, not too hot. The sky would have been half full of beautiful, defined, bulging clouds. But it was not the weather that made this harmony exist in the picture. It was the extent to which the architecture in my imagination had grown into its surroundings, and conversely, the trees had grown into the architecture. While everything there had once been designed by a human hand it had developed not only a life, but a soul, of its own.


At its best, Kumamoto City achieves this harmony. Its ancient trees in the spacious fields of the park that borders the castle grounds provide a kind of space that is rare in any city. The castle's centrality in the city allows for many to enjoy its spaciousness and its enchantedness. On Friday I enjoyed most of the sunny day in the park next to the castle, lying in the grass and taking pictures of people and trees and the sakura blossoms. At one point some kids misplaced their soccer ball in the moat-like body of water that lies in the susbtantial dip between the park and the castle walls. It was amusing to see them work so hard to avoid getting wet and muddy, Here you can see one of them using a twig while trying to accomplish their task. In the end it was a few gusts of wind that brought the ball back to their still dry hands.



This happened just after my attack of estrangedness that I mention in the last post. Today, lightly contemplating my time in the city this weekend I thought about how a camera has much the same ability as imagination does. You start with a format, the film, the digital chip, the brain, and you are then able, almost regardless of the sometimes subtle specificities of the format, to create and expose an infinite variety of images/ideas/feelings within that format. So you start with your potentially generic format and you are able to do wonders with it as long as you can, and as long as you try. Of course not everyone has the luxury of being able to use their format; perhaps they lack battery power, time, energy, space, sanity.






In any case there were thousands of happy people in the park on Friday enjoying the cherry blossoms, sitting on blue tarps, having drinking parties with their offices, enjoying time with their family members, or just being relaxed and carefree. It is overwhelming now to look back on that day and all its peaceful humanity.