I have a map booklet that I find very useful. Mapart is the name of the company that publishes it. It's well designed and easy to use. One helpful feature is that it has colour coded areas, pink is residential, green is parkland, and grey is zoned industrial.
Yesterday I drove to a grey area. An area that has been scared by heavy industry, but over the last thirty years many of the factories have closed down or been re-purposed. An old canal that runs through the area has been made shallow with the silt of a hundred years, beavers chew mulberry trees along it's banks. Teenagers drain cans of Coors Lite beneath the natural cover that has grown around old slag heaps, piles of rock that were once molten.
When in speech we refer to a grey area we are usually talking about something that is uncertain, not well defined. That is how I feel about my grey area, the place shaded grey on my map.
If I were to clearly tell you how this place is, define it clearly, you may not want to go there. Things and places and people will always have an area of grey to them. I find that comforting.
2 comments:
i especially love the first shot. it actually looks a lot like a photo i recently took near the tracks by my house. i'll try to find it.
this grey place looks like a neat place. your description is as interesting as the photos of it.
and i like the analogy you've made here. i suspect all of us have grey areas that are not so "pretty" at first glance. but upon a closer look, you can find character and a deeper beauty there. i too find it comforting.
Again an illustration that not everything in life is black and white....well put.
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