You know those movies where people find themselves alone in some deserted landscape? Movies where people go back in time, or where everyone is annihilated except one person (think I AM LEGEND) or where somehow people get to inhabit their own imaginations? That's how it feels when you go to a summer resort town in spring. The whole town is there and poised, waiting for the warm weather and all the summer folk. We go there on spring break and we have the town to ourselves. It's curiously silent and lovely, yet rather lifeless--all potential and no action.Even when we ran across these shoes that some young wag threw over a telephone wire, there was no evidence of teens anywhere around. It made me wonder who had thrown them, why they had done it, if they miss those shoes now.
Going here was like entering a painting and absorbing its beauty without encountering the life implied by the landscape. It was restful, solace-filled. As spring breaks go, it was great for R and R, but not so much for invigoration. Still, I think my sons had fun anyway, because like the youngster who threw the shoes, they can make fun out of the pure exuberance of their youth.
4 comments:
Indeed, you capture the feeling of such places. I always wonder about the story behind the bits of clothing one sees along roads and the shoes danging from the lines. The idea than they were purposefully thrown there (almost certainly true) is far less lurid and energetic than other explanations one might imagine.
A good point. And it's so often shoes . . . why are they so disposable? Isn't walking on concrete or gravel quite difficult without them?
When I see shoes like that... I always think of Luna from Harry Potter... and her things always showing up.... hope your trip was restful, Jules.
It was nice, thanks! But I am in the time-honored position of not being emotionally ready to return to work tomorrow.
Luna is a great comparison! But I think I have to start re-reading all the Harry Potters, because I am forgetting little details, like Luna's shoes.
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