We can draw conclusions about The Invisible. We can postulate its existence with relative certainty. But all we can represent is an analogy, which stands for the invisible but is not it. – Gerhard Richter
Late September, 2023. The crickets are still singing, slower but firmly. You can hear cricket neighborhoods–a slight difference in pace, pitch, and tone.
A miniscule difference to my compromised hearing, but enough to experience texture on the back porch or in the garden.
We got a light brush with Ophelia–quiet periodic rain and drizzle and a small breeze.
The storm also gave us this pervading gloomy light where color tends to pop.
The cusp of seasons is an exciting time, you have to admit. The exuberance of those later bloomers next to the elders fading and bending, helps us register the change easily.
The wind–no matter how gentle–and the dimming light send a clear message: tuck-in and wear warmer things.
Since it’s clearing out and tuck-in season, I’m handling garden stones that come my way. Between weather and age, I also feel my bones. This brings me down the rabbit hole of what is solid and obvious and seen and what is unseen and invisible to us.
Bones and stones: I used to think that they are the most solid examples of solidness.
But in fact, bones get remodeled 10% every year and we get whole new set about every 10 years.* And rocks have their own cycle of transformation, when they change to another type of rock or sand.
Calendars and clocks try to make time visible. Do they succeed? Geological time might as well be science fiction. I mean, thousands and millions of years?
It’s my bones that seem to be the metric on this matter of ‘seeing’ time, which seems like the most invisible thing of invisible-ness.
Post Script
* While bones are one of the longest living, other human parts have their own time stamp: the liver, 6 weeks, heart, 6 months, and surface cells of our digestion process, are replaced every 5 minutes! Water? We get a 100% rinse of new water every 16 days. On the other end, neuro-cells are ancient and stay with us for life. They can be disrupted like anything else, but not replaced (yet).
Now I’m just showing off my googling! It’s amazing to me this elemental principle of all that is visible. We know it moves and changes because we can witness on a micro-level, the mechanisms in play.
The process of repair, dying, healing, and atom exchange is a feature of the living. For the inert or not-living, the timeline is what it is. We know rock can be born of a volcano, or it can quickly or slowly be crushed, smashed into each other becoming sand or a completely different rock.
We ‘see’ weather patterns by way of high and low atmospheric density.
So many ways to see, going in and out of focus depending on the senses that we have right now.
Gorgeous photos and qords. Glad you’re back! ❤️
Love your blog! Very interesting and fun facts about bones.