Woolgathering

Pictures?  Or words? 

I like them both and I've been known to pore over old family photos.  I love comparing the new faces in the family with the old.  I enjoy the travel photos that we all take and share on our blogs.  And travelling is where I started wondering about words and pictures. 

I've just finished a novel set in Quebec City.  Not a place I've always longed to visit.  But, the words were so evocative that I found myself wanting to see it for myself.  To feel it for myself.  The author put me right on the street.  True, it was mid-winter and I doubt that I'd want to visit then.  But maybe, I should. Maybe the feelings I responded to wouldn't be there in the summer.  But, oh, the biting cold doesn't appeal to me.

 The reason that I wanted so badly to visit l'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland had nothing to do with pictures in a National Geographic.  No, what tipped my desire was a book: The Far Traveller by Nancy Marie Brown.  She has a very interesting blog, visit it here.

This novel introduced me to real people with real lives.  I could feel Iceland and the adventure and anxiety as the wooden ships set out on the North Atlantic.  I could 'know' what it was like to live in that tiny settlement on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland in the cold winters and the beautiful summers. I was back in time, living in a sod house by the sea. 

It's always the people.  It's their thoughts and feelings that can't be expressed in photos.  Now, if only I had some words to go with those old family photos.  Wouldn't that be wonderful?  This makes me realize that there are no words to go with my own not-so-old pictures.  Maybe there should be some stories.    



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