Loving where I am is what I've been trying to do in a more wide awake and deliberate way. About a year ago, I started exploring the dilapidated South. It's a great part of where I live. I enjoy the beauty of the worn out, the abandoned, the discards such as this numberless rusted thermometer.
Fortunately I live with a man who is happy to press on the brakes and pull off the side of the road at a moments notice. It comes in handy, that's for sure. Yesterday we peeled off somewhere near Stuart, Virginia on a day that was, as you see, as hot as Hades. The red line of heat stretches nearly to the top. One more inch and we would officially be in hell.
The simple thermometer is a mess but it's still keeping track, and that's more than any of our current digital devices could probably manage under these conditions and after so long a time.
I recently read a wonderful definition of visual literacy by a photog and scholar named Christopher James. Visual literacy is the ability to see. More specifically, it is the capacity to interpret, associate, and communicate signs, symbols, codes, signals, metaphors, and marks.
It's possible to know a lot, know enough certainly, without even a word or number. And, really, it's no wonder given the signs, symbols, codes, signals, metaphors, and marks everywhere we look.
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