Sweet Thames, Run Softly

I discovered a book recently called Lovely is the Lee by Robert Gibbings. Gibbings was a prolific artist and writer in the early part of the 20th century who was born in Cork, Ireland. The book is charming. It basically recounts Gibbings experiences drifting down the Lee River in Ireland and the things and people he meets.

So I looked him up on my favorite used book site and found out he had written a whole slew of these river books, each one profusely illustrated with his wood engravings. Needless to say, I discovered a gold mine of summer reading materials. For just under $30, I purchased several first editions (with dust wrappers or course), and have started about reading them.

More than just an author and artist, Gibbings proves to be a profound naturalist, historian, philosopher, archaeologist, and all-around adventurer. I would recommend these books to anyone interested in a good-natured ramble through the back roads of a Europe of 100 years ago.

Currently Listening Another Mellow Spring By Mellow see related

Doors

Do you know what's always bothered me? Doors that don't open. You know the ones I mean. The door with a piece of furniture in front of it, or a sign that says "use other door". It has lost it's function, without losing it's identity as a doorway. Even if the physical door itself has been removed and the corresponding opening bricked up, the old identity remains outlined against the wall; and questions along with it. It has lost it's reason for existing. I wonder if over time the owner forgets why he ever shut the door. I wonder what was happening the day the door was shut for the last time. The day it was assigned the role of a wall. The day it was told, "You are no longer a door. You are a wall". No longer a way to get through to someplace, but now a barrier which taunts my curiosity.

With a purposeful step, the old man walked thoughtfully toward a dimly-lit corner of the room, and with each footfall, was taken backward year minus year, more surely than a time machine. He placed one of his feeble hands against the chalky smoothness of the cool grey wall, and with a voice tinted by a sudden excited memory, which as quickly became shaded with melancholy, he said, "There used to be a door here."

Life is neither fair nor unfair. Whether chanced or predestined, it just happens. Have a nice life!