Looking through old glass feels a little like standing outside of time. The wavery, watery pane distorts the view just enough to hold it in perspective, as a fleeting moment in the long passage of years. It holds the scene at a distance, even as it offers a reminder of life’s fragility. An old window softens the world.
The old glass reveals motion I cannot perceive otherwise: the imperceptible turn of the earth with its accrual of days into seasons, a year, a lifetime; the pull of gravity over time, drawing down the pane into ripples and waves, pulling at my body in the same way. All the moments count, no one of them more or less than another, which is hard to take because that’s not how we see our lives.
Time passes without our noticing, yet it leaves its mark. The view through old glass notes the brevity of a moment, even as it attests to the lasting change a moment’s passing leaves. It’s an image of the weight of the past, and of the vitality that sets this moment apart.
It shows our days to be part of a long unfolding, part of something larger. At the same time, it invites an appreciation of the moment as all we have.
If I could see the view through the other side of the glass, look through the curving lines of light at myself, would I understand something more about my life?
To stand apart, to stand outside and look within. That made me stop and think for a while; it would not let go of me and I realize that’s because it’s like writing, the words on the page the wavy glass. When we’re doing it we are on both sides of the glass at once, it seems to me.
Steve
I enjoy your photographs very much, Susan. They remind me to a quote from the filmmaker Wem Wenders in his book, ONCE.
“Once is not enough,”
I used to say as a kid.
That seemed very plausable to me,
“once upon a time.”
But when you take pictures,
I learned,
None of that applies.
The “once” is
“once and for all.”
And regarding Steve’s comment about writing and the wavy glass, I reminded of this line from Antonio Machado: “I am never closer to thinking one thing than when I’ve written the opposite.”
Thanks, Sharon, for these wonderful quotes. I recognize the desire to hold onto a moment in a photo, and the Machado quote makes me chuckle.
The photographs are fun for me, and I’m glad you enjoy them.
It’s interesting to think of writing as being on both sides of the glass, Steve. Even in writing a personal narrative, the act of writing takes us out of ourselves, if we do it well. Even, or especially, as we enter deeply into a particular story we touch something universal. I suppose that is like an expanded perspective that places us on both sides of the glass.
Glad to have your perspective.