I really enjoyed the delicate philosophy of this, Becky. I'm sorry for your family's loss.
It made me curious to look up the etymology of mist. Usually the original meaning of a word disperses over time as it comes to signify different things to different cultures, but "mist" has had the same meaning ever since Proto-Indo-European 5000+ years ago (*h₃migʰstos: mist, cloud, drizzle). It seems mist taps into something profound and universal about the human experience.
When I was learning to drive, my dad told me not to use main beam headlamps in fog because the droplets of water simply reflect the horizontal beam of light straight back at you, creating a wall of brightness. Dipped beam is angled downwards so it penetrates better. Maybe there's an analogy in that.
Thanks Laura - have always been a bit obsessed with water and light - growing up on an island, when mist came in off the sea it did make the land look like it was in the sky, which of course it wasn’t, but dissolving the distinctions between things does feel quite transformative
I really enjoyed the delicate philosophy of this, Becky. I'm sorry for your family's loss.
It made me curious to look up the etymology of mist. Usually the original meaning of a word disperses over time as it comes to signify different things to different cultures, but "mist" has had the same meaning ever since Proto-Indo-European 5000+ years ago (*h₃migʰstos: mist, cloud, drizzle). It seems mist taps into something profound and universal about the human experience.
When I was learning to drive, my dad told me not to use main beam headlamps in fog because the droplets of water simply reflect the horizontal beam of light straight back at you, creating a wall of brightness. Dipped beam is angled downwards so it penetrates better. Maybe there's an analogy in that.
Thanks Laura - have always been a bit obsessed with water and light - growing up on an island, when mist came in off the sea it did make the land look like it was in the sky, which of course it wasn’t, but dissolving the distinctions between things does feel quite transformative
So much beauty and mystery in this.
❤️ I have no idea how a ghost would knock on a door, but as all the dry and logical possibilities are much less fun, let’s just say it was Nat