My favorite passage in Sally Mann's memoir.
A beautiful articulation of something I experience daily.
As for me, I see both the beauty and the dark sides of things;
the lovliness of cornfields and full sails, but the ruin as well.
And I see them at the same time, at once ecstatic at the beauty of things,
and chary of that ectasy.
The Japanese have a phrase for this dual perception: mono no aware.
It means "beauty tinged with sadness," for there cannot be any real beauty without
the indolic whiff of decay.
For me, living is the same thing as dying, and loving is the smae thing as losing,
and this does not make me a madwoman; I believe it can make me better at living, and better at loving, and just possibly, better at seeing.
Sally Mann
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