Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
I squint at the wind because I read Stewart Edward White: “I have always maintained that if you looked closely enough you could see the wind—the dim, hardly-made-out, fine d é bris fleeing high in the air.” White was an excellent observer, and devoted an entire chapter of The Mountains to the subject of seeing deer: “As soon as you can forget the... See more
Annie Dillard • Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
On Seeing and learning to see. Reflections on seeing bird and animals from the boat on the Rio Yanuyacu.
It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out. — HERACLITUS
Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
The point is that I just don’t know what the lover knows; I just can’t see the artificial obvious that those in the know construct.
Annie Dillard • Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
How I feel being in the Comité. I don’t know what these lovers know. I can’t see the artificial obvious that they see, yet.
How could so many hide in the tree without my seeing them?
Annie Dillard • Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
We must somehow take a wider view, look at the whole landscape, really see it, and describe what’s going on here. Then we can at least wail the right question into the swaddling band of darkness, or, if it comes to that, choir the proper praise
Annie Dillard • Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
Maybe I can wail my own crumbling body in the rocking chair at 2:45pm just a few hours before therapy. Maybe I can hurl my frustration by my own tired body, my own limited brain, my distracted attention span, my struggle with other people’s decisions, how long everything takes, and how hard it is for me to slow down.
As I walked along the grassy edge of the island, I got better and better at seeing frogs both in and out of the water. I learned to recognize, slowing down, the difference in texture of the light reflected from mud bank, water, grass, or frog.
Annie Dillard • Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
propose to keep here what Thoreau called “a meteorological journal of the mind,” telling some tales and describing some of the sights of this rather tamed valley, and exploring, in fear and trembling, some of the unmapped dim reaches and unholy fastnesses to which those tales and sights so dizzyingly lead
Annie Dillard • Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
This is how I feel about my current life, that I am in an uninterrupted state of my own “meterological journal” of the mind. My blog does that too, it tells some tales and describes some of the sights of of this rather tamed valley and exploring the unmapped reaches and unholy fastnesses
The sharks disappeared as each wave rolled toward me; then a new wave would swell above the horizon, containing in it, like scorpions in amber, sharks that roiled and heaved. The sight held awesome wonders: power and beauty, grace tangled in a rapture with violence.
Annie Dillard • Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
This is what human life feels like.
In making the thick darkness a swaddling band for the sea, God “set bars and doors” and said, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” But have we come even that far? Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat?
Annie Dillard • Annie Dillard - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (pdf).pdf
This is how I feel about a lot of people, a lot of the time.