“Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground.” ― Judith Thurman
“Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground.” ― Judith Thurman
Perhaps it is due to the fact that as a child my parents moved around a fair bit, living in different countries, but I have never felt homesick for home. However I have, on more than one occasion felt homesick for a place I was returning from. I am not quite the dreamer of Thurman’s quote but I can well believe that homesickness can strike the heart for places barely known or even known only in our imagination.
Beautiful tones in your photo. I thought I was looking at old, weathered yarn until I read the caption. Now I am trying to imagine the same scene at high tide. What a contrast that must be.
I felt homesick for home when younger, in the military and stationed in Europe and happily dreamer homesick many times before and since.
Now that you mention it, I can see the yarn aspect to this image. The colors and tones, while enhanced some in this image, were pretty striking.
I certainly understand the sentiment in the quote, although I’m not sure “homesick” is the right descriptor. Like you, I experienced homesickness while in the military or when traveling for business (when I was a young lad!). Home always seemed to be a magical spot, a place that was familiar and comforting. No more. For years it’s just been a place on the map, a place to keep our “stuff”. It’s the lure of the road that better defines “home”. Especially when that road leads to the desert!
I really like the image, Brooks. For me, it’s the kind of image that you don’t want to get too close to. By that I mean that focusing on the details, trying to concentrate on individual components, is probably the wrong way to view this. I think the viewer needs to literally back away so that color is what you see, not the individual twig like structures that make up the “whole”. I also like the diagonal that runs from the bottom left to upper right in the frame. Mostly, though, it’s the mood created by the color and the soft, out-of-focus appearance around the edges.
Paul, in the quote, homesick would not have been my first choice — but I’ve taken Judith Thurman’s use of homesick to mean a yearning for that which seems to satisfy a core desire or need, which I believe is very close to how you also see and described it. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Thanks for the comments about the image. I like your take on it being more about the “whole” which is created by a number of different components. I often think I view all my images “from a distance” these days since I’m limited to post-processing on a 13″ laptop screen. :-)