Quiet places. Somewhere that you may like to go. Somewhere I like to go.
But what is a quiet place? Of course, it may be a place physically devoid of sound, a vacuum of nothing. Such places are rare, and somewhat elusive.
No. To me, a quiet place has sound, but lacks noise.
A quiet place may be in the bush, with birdsong, a gentle rustle of the breeze in the treetops, a creek simply being a creek.
Perhaps it’s a gravel road in the country at that time where the mist is still there but the sun is gently encouraging it to retire for the morning.
It may be a place quiet in tone: the brown, the green, the grey, the yellow.
It may be artificially quiet. That special place; but now where the tones have been blackened, and the birdsong relocated until The Noise displaces them once again.
A quiet place will be different to us all. To me, quintessentially, it is a place where the noise of life, of stress, of work, of machines, of conflict – is gone, and my mind is quiet. That is my quiet place.
I hope you enjoy journeying to my quiet places.
Series 1: A cultural landscape on the takayna/the Tarkine coast
The roll of the waves. An unusual lull in the roaring forties. A group of oystercatchers, keeping an obligatory distance and squeaking their alarm.
A vast scatter of midden and stone tools revealed and hidden by the whim of the wind and shifting sands. Standing still and thinking. 50,000 years. My mind quietens.
