The Gallery - Nature, freedom and hope

 

Some cliches:

Free as a bird

Spread your wings

The ever-rolling sea

Let fly....

But then, perhaps the reason they're cliches is because they're true.

I look at this photograph, which I took at the Cape of Good Hope when L was not quite six months and I see freedom.  And I see space.  And I see silence.  And I feel the sharpness of the breeze, and I feel the freshness of the air and the chill on your skin that makes you feel alive and clean and aware of where your body meets the world outside it.

And the thing is that that wasn't what the Cape of Good Hope was like that day at all. It was hot, really hot; and too still with it, even there, oppressively so.  And it was noisy, rammed with Japanese tourists (that's another cliche but it, again, also happens to be true), shouting at each other to move, to smile, to wave at mum back home, with, in the background, the ever-present white noise of the ocean, stretching all the way from you to Antarctica.

But here, nearly three years later, I see none of that.  I see freedom and silence.  And escape.  The possibility that that seemingly endless expanse of water offers.  The knowledge that beyond you, for thousands of miles, is nothing.  Empty ocean, through which I could float, beyond reach.   

And I look at that picture and I see the birds.  And again I see freedom.  I ignore the brevity of their lives, and the hardship, and the struggle to survive, and I see the possibility of taking wing, of flying away.

And I find it curious, when I am, at the moment, calm and contented with my lot, that this is the picture that I chose... 

********************************************************************

I am at my parents' and various other locations at the moment so internet access is intermittent, hence why I am posting this early, but as from Wednesday morning, the rest of the Gallery will be here.