I read the Cloud section of chapter one in Annie Dillard today having anticipated her touch on a topic I love. “We all possess records,” she begins then notes that Constable’s recorded clouds remain though he and his wife are gone. Was Constable interested in posterity? I don’t think I am recording for posterity, but I do have the impulse to record. Dillard questions our individual place in the vast terrain of history and landscape. What is the purpose of the individual person, and further, what is the significance of each moment? “Why seek dated clouds? Why save a letter, take a snapshot, write a memoir, carve a tombstone?” Yes indeed, why? Why record the day, the time, the sky and weather? Why note the animals in the yard?
6.13.2012... quarter cloud cover, slight wind
I read the Cloud section of chapter one in Annie Dillard today having anticipated her touch on a topic I love. “We all possess records,” she begins then notes that Constable’s recorded clouds remain though he and his wife are gone. Was Constable interested in posterity? I don’t think I am recording for posterity, but I do have the impulse to record. Dillard questions our individual place in the vast terrain of history and landscape. What is the purpose of the individual person, and further, what is the significance of each moment? “Why seek dated clouds? Why save a letter, take a snapshot, write a memoir, carve a tombstone?” Yes indeed, why? Why record the day, the time, the sky and weather? Why note the animals in the yard?
