When travelling I often wish I could take photographs by just shutting my eyelids, capturing a scene without a clumsy camera. In a way, I do. I collect pictures from my travels which my subconscious stores for me, to surprise my unsuspecting mind with sometime later.
Memories of cherished places flood me sometimes when my mind is idle, when I'm not concentrating, when I'm sitting on a tram, queuing, washing dishes... These pictures are always unexpected and they bring a rush of feelings with them. I wouldn't describe them as nostalgia for the past, rather a sudden yearning to be in that other place again.
These emotional, evocative memories are just as precious to me as are the consciously treasured ones and share a characteristic with the snow globes I collect from the cities I'd visited - they bring back the essence of a place without actually capturing the likeness of it.
I think this is the feeling Wordsworth wrote about in his Daffodils.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude...
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude...
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| Snow globes I brought home or received throughout the years |
