Walking Commentary
Thoughts while waiting to walk from Manchester to Rome in 2022
If a people has a culture, it also has a present and therefore a history. While the present does not guarantee a future, recording the present helps establish the historicity of a culture. The authority that is conveyed through authentic observation tends to help preserve cultures when those presents are continuously documented. Perhaps the idea of historicity is another concept to add to grievability when we think of human rights.
The Burren arrived by post this morning. A beautiful graphical representation of a timeless place scoured, smoothed and littered by passing glaciers. Driving out to the Black Head Lighthouse for a late summer sunset has more than once rewarded me with memories as permanent as the photos I could have taken. Following the road to the south, the bare escarpment to the left might be rendered pink by the dying light. Grey limestone enlivened by photons and water droplets can shimmer rose-pink-rose-pink-rose-pink. Light that left the sun some eight minutes earlier persists in the mind decades later.
‘Lovely map – sadly its maker met Covid-19’ wrote my benefactor on a card that accompanied this most generous gift. ‘Hear you are planning an Atlantic Walk’.
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