Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Patterns













I see patterns everywhere I look. It’s a metaphor, I’m sure, for the aging process. As I understand the aging brain, “wisdom” is really the improved function of pattern recognition. We seem wiser because we see patterns so quickly. We recognize patterns so quickly because we have seen them many times before. It comes from having been around the block, you might say, neurologically. Yes, the novelty has worn off, and wow, I got that fast, didn’t I?

I went to New York last weekend. I don’t know why it takes me a whole year to get there for a weekend, but it sometimes does. In any case, I also have a new camera. Nice conjunction of events. Trip to New York AND a new camera to take along with me. I saw a lot of people while I was there, my son and his wife, whom I adore and can’t ever get enough of. And our niece and our nephew and their respective families and friends of our son, and neighbors, people on the subway and on the street. The characters are many and a delight for the eye. But all my camera (and I) could see were patterns. Patterns in the brickwork, in the manhole covers, on fences, the backs of chairs, tree trunks, flowers, the limbs of trees or people. Carved in stone, cast in bronze, the angles of people standing on line at the shake shack, a stack of moving dollies, the arches over windows, a line of water towers in Brooklyn, the shadows of a staircase, an ornate ceiling. Here are a few.