July 8 words

Listen silent
This is one of my all-time favorite views.   The picture didn't actually do the layers of gentle hills justice.   Sometimes the light brings them out in the most beautiful manner imaginable.  Usually when I see this view, though, I am either driving by or sitting on the wrong side of the car from which no good pictures can be taken.   There is definitely no place to pull over and no place to walk if you pulled over somewhere else and tried to walk.   But on this particular day, we were going the other direction, and Joe slowed down so I could try a shot through the open passenger side window. So here is an almost- shot, one of those shots that are pale echoes of what you actually saw and felt.

I suppose speech is like that as well.  We talk and talk.   Some might say that we create thoughts and feelings with our talk.  But it could also be true that our talk falls into the same category as the almost-shots.  Perhaps it is just a faint echo of thecentirety of our thoughts, the entirety of our feelings.   Should we not bother to talk,  then?   Should we stay silent because it's a given that our words will never quite capture the entire picture of ourselves in all of its color and depth?  Of course not.   It's the best we have.   We should just listen carefully to what people tell us, remembering that we hear but an echo.    We should listen carefully to what we ourselves are saying,  listen carefully but remember that a given string of words is not the whole picture.

These musings lead me quite naturally to think about the entire issue of people listening to each other and then thinking that there are hidden meanings and motivations in the words, hidden truths that they, the listener are somehow privy to.   That's different,  and I might write about that another day. 

[katy]

This is a lovely photo. I’m so glad Joe slowed down so you could catch it. I really enjoyed your very thought provoking narrative! Listening seems to be a skill it is slowly becoming extinct as people communicate more and more through text.

[Kathy]

A lovely landscape. I can imagine the blues and greens, brights and shadowed more. I admit, I often "read" more into what someone says than I should until...I should and then it just slides by me.