by D'Arcy Hutton
Why, hello there geologic history!
Time travel. I think about it a lot. And when I do, the distant past feels so tangible. So present. I feel the same buoyant almost-vertigo I feel when swimming, goggled, in the clear waters of Lake Superior. There, I can peer down at vivid volkswagen-sized boulders, bright igneous rock with veins like butterscotch ripple, fifty feet below me. Far beyond my lung capacity, yet so close, separated only by a stone's throw expanse of something clear, airless, and cold, straight down. More like flying than swimming. The distant past feels like that: so vivid and close at hand, but just beyond my lung capacity.
Maybe it's not a coincidence that the elements of water and geology are the chosen metaphors for my relationship to history. It was through the concepts of landscape-level tracking in the Canadian Shield landscape of my home region that I began practicing that momentary switch in perspective.
Maybe it's not a coincidence that the elements of water and geology are the chosen metaphors for my relationship to history. It was through the concepts of landscape-level tracking in the Canadian Shield landscape of my home region that I began practicing that momentary switch in perspective.
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