Dendrochronology

A train leaves at nine for St Andrews.  It arrives late and goes much too far in the right direction.  Away from the dimpled dense golf balls gliding in arctic winds over fallen walls.  In between yellow field and green.  My Grandfather and Ana's house dancing on the edge of an abandoned quarry.  A transparent sand lens lets the light in.  Millions of years of sedimentary erosion and organic evolution host one another in a symbiotic swirl.  The wood echoes the sounds of birds back and forth.  Beautiful beads of water rest on wax leaves.   Dreams flow within without and all else was snow and serene seclusion.  

Perceiving my roots through the study of tree rings.

Sonic Sounds of Scotland

It appears that i've been a bit of a ludite in regards to my blog over the past few months.  It's not that i haven't been taking pictures or pondering cultural juxtapositions: it's just that time speeds up and slows down so often that i can't keep track anymore.  In any case, as it's better late than never, here are my first few weeks in Scotland (starting with the day I left Vancouver).  

When you step outside in Edinburgh, you are hit by the hanging, pungent aroma of barley and car exhaust, so dense you could chew it.  The skyline is cut with a jagged, gothic knife.  The towering walls, built for protection and power, are stained with photosynthesizing micro-greenery clinging to hospitable stone crevices.  Construction and restoration, preserving precious antiquity, carves a maze from cobble streets.  Old, shrunken ladies smoke cigarettes and continue to climb up flights of sunken stairs to their fifth floor flat.  Church's have been converted into restaurants; cemeteries into parks for cheerful walks; fast food into a fancy night out.  It's strange and beautiful: eccentric and quaint: cold and cloudy.  I love it very much.