Out of the corder of my eye
I turned to look, but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child has grown, the dream is gone
And I have become
Comfortably numb
I’m reading William Allard’s five-decade retrospective
Mr. Allard is certainly not an author I identify with, with his love for Peru, cowboys, and people on the margins (the Amish, the Basques), but he does ring true as a human being. Although it seems to me that his work is primarily flavored with many stark and iconic images (involving light and shadow), there’s a humanity in it that grabs me. I think that it’s his view of life that I identify with – at least in his earlier sections.
So as I type this, I’m thinking about his introduction; I’m thinking about how he identifies with “Comfortably Numb.” As we grow older, it becomes easier to lose our wonder with the world. I see it in myself: I deliberately numb myself during the long winters up here, so that I don’t notice time passing quite so quickly. I do the same when I’m busy, and need to focus, or when I diet.
And it seems a shame.
I lose much of the joy in life by doing that. I suppose it’s time to stop.
(mentioned in 
. Only thirty pages in, and I’m already seeing something I really like: a self-portrait of Diane, in vulnerable and intimate pose.
,” to be exact. There were things that I found that broke a bit of my mental image of the man: learning that he tried fairly often to create his vision in color but personally felt he failed. That he considered even his better (color) work to be lackluster. That he played with the English language in letters to friends.
from a gifter. Thanks, anonymous gifter!
,” that is. Barely a chapter in & it’s making me think. Take, for example, the 
. Again, highly recommended.