Thursday 25 December 2008
f2, 1/16 sec, ISO 100, -1.3 EV
Bolt & bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
...& I seem to know,
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist & snow.
Bolt & bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
...& I seem to know,
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist & snow.
Sometimes, Mas Sgier is only for standing on. It was running a force 10 through the wires, rolling boulders along the seabed with one hand & clawing the wool from the backs of sheep with the other when I took this shot...The wind nearly stripped me from the edge as well, such are her nails. But we are somehow kin. We call it the washing machine, that local abyss, when it finds it's mind, for good reason.
Eventually numbed, you get told to leave by the teeth of the storm, & push sideways like a drunk on the Glasgie offramp tracking back, -the collie ahead with his ears behind- to those soulless four walls & ponder the coins & coral on the window ledge & think fondly of Tromsø. No long now, until another magnificent qajaq territory draws you back again.
Nothing really prepares an individual for -12°C midnight kayak navigation underneath a dancing symphony of Aurora Borealis & the warm current drift. Who needs christmas lights & warm care anyway huh? Tromsø - the training ground of the hardy...or maybe the foolhardy says a pal with a familiar lopsided grin.
Either way, I have somehow become a repeat offender for well over a decade, sometimes in anger, sometimes in peace. I'd forgotten the turn of the years...Lars & his exploding pie recipe, iceberg bouldering in Speedos, snowaking, the wee girl who owns the coins....she must be a young woman by now...
She was 5 when she asked if I was a bad eskimo & we swapped coins...
I've always kept them - exactly where I said I would.
Immediate forward plan? Twin black knives, some deep water line, free running loops, Qajaasaarneq rope for a dawn workout, two big lobster over a bivouac fire & watch the Hogmanay fireworks from a shoreline out in the remote blackness. Somewhere where the shoreline is steeped in oxygen & even an inkling of a dram, a lit cigarette or faint sound in the clear air alerts the senses like a downwind perimeter alarm. Empty peace - has more appeal than a heaving cattle market a thousand strong, & choosing it, empowers against sitting amongst quiet walls twiddling my thumbs. Sometimes being a prisoner of freedom has a few advantages I guess. Living by consistent & recognizable markers of sleep & waking, transitory weather systems & dark & light; extradition gazes in on a bizarre circus of learned & expected ritual. There is more life alone out on the vast ocean around this time than there is on dry land. Better to cut your teeth on cold stone & roll the night surf mad, possessed, than blunt your soul waiting.
Have a good one whatever you may be doing. Really.
Nothing really prepares an individual for -12°C midnight kayak navigation underneath a dancing symphony of Aurora Borealis & the warm current drift. Who needs christmas lights & warm care anyway huh? Tromsø - the training ground of the hardy...or maybe the foolhardy says a pal with a familiar lopsided grin.
Either way, I have somehow become a repeat offender for well over a decade, sometimes in anger, sometimes in peace. I'd forgotten the turn of the years...Lars & his exploding pie recipe, iceberg bouldering in Speedos, snowaking, the wee girl who owns the coins....she must be a young woman by now...
She was 5 when she asked if I was a bad eskimo & we swapped coins...
I've always kept them - exactly where I said I would.
Immediate forward plan? Twin black knives, some deep water line, free running loops, Qajaasaarneq rope for a dawn workout, two big lobster over a bivouac fire & watch the Hogmanay fireworks from a shoreline out in the remote blackness. Somewhere where the shoreline is steeped in oxygen & even an inkling of a dram, a lit cigarette or faint sound in the clear air alerts the senses like a downwind perimeter alarm. Empty peace - has more appeal than a heaving cattle market a thousand strong, & choosing it, empowers against sitting amongst quiet walls twiddling my thumbs. Sometimes being a prisoner of freedom has a few advantages I guess. Living by consistent & recognizable markers of sleep & waking, transitory weather systems & dark & light; extradition gazes in on a bizarre circus of learned & expected ritual. There is more life alone out on the vast ocean around this time than there is on dry land. Better to cut your teeth on cold stone & roll the night surf mad, possessed, than blunt your soul waiting.
Have a good one whatever you may be doing. Really.
posted by •≈ Sgian Dubh at 06:00:00 | 
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