Fading From Views

The ups and downs of everyday life, not to mention life in general, sometimes does take a toll.  A brief respite from tempestuous existence can often be found in the form of a very good book (or, at least, sometimes it does).  It can draw one away from the here and now towards something that one wishes deeply to achieve and help better visualize, or even better draw one far deeper into the here and now and become alive.  A book I had mentioned earlier, Wabi Inspirations by Axel Vervoordt from the Flammarion press and which had its release date yesterday in the States, is on the surface such a book.

The arrival of any Vervoordt book comes with equal measure joy and disappointment.  The joy is that one is able to see some very beautiful arrangement of objects and luxurious spaces photographed with just the right amount of delicacy and shadow.  One wonders how one can arrange one's own life in an environment which caters exclusively to the aesthetic.  One looks around and perhaps sees what one is missing, or better yet, realizes what one has and how utterly dear it is.  And other thoughts- the daydreaming kind that this sort of beauty for beauty's sake conjures.

On the other hand, repeated viewings of the same photographs that one fell in love with show that they are just two dimensional representations.  They are the exact same photographs, perhaps sometimes giving rise to a detail that one missed, but essentially they are the same.  Photography loses its luster and the book itself which freezes moments is perhaps the antithesis to the theme of wabi (simplicity and elegance in things rustic, and often possessing a transient quality). The beauty which one surrenders to initially begins to recede with repeated viewings, until the book becomes just another book on the bookshelf.

The American edition of the book.

Evoking the usual memory of Sen no Rikyu.

The most mysterious and lovely spread in my view.

Perhaps it is better not to document things and to experience them just the once, just in the moment, and so have and lose them at the same time.