All right, enough of my idle chatter

A few days ago, I wrote that almost without exception, my experience regarding living within the confines of a major, metropolitan city has been to set up residence as much toward the outer limits of it as possible. This is an example of why. My neighbors right now include this pair of deer. A third was just off camera view to one side. We have here either a mother with last Spring's fawns or, possibly, a yearling taking care of a younger brother and/or sister. No matter which, I have come to the point where I no longer can understand why anyone hunts deer. These photographs were taken through the glass of my window, across gray skies and a light snow/freezing rain mix at different speeds and aperture settings, in case you did not figure that out by looking at them. Just teasing with that last sentence.

Home is far from the huddled masses
Part 3 of 3

The entire sequence of these posts began with and ends with this thought: Where, if you think at all in terms of comfort, security and freedom, do you most feel this way?

For me, it is no contest: In a home beneath the trees and near the water -- far away from the "huddling masses" of Ellis Island or the southwestern American "war zone" borders; far away from the inner city Black or Italian or Mexican or Vietnamese or Hmong or Colombian gangs; far away from the Twin Towers or the Texas Tower or the Ivory Towers; far away from the Street With No Name or Wall Street or a ghetto street.

Some of these thoughts originate because in the woodlands, to reiterate, because of some innate sense, I am a predator. On the streets in a city, I feel like I am the prey. Silly? I do not know, but the look of prey often is reflected in the eyes of city dwellers. Have you not seen this yourself?

People go to the city primarily for work, because they usually can make more money in such a setting. Secondly, they go, I think, to keep themselves readily entertained. But, once there, because they quickly lose their identity due to having become a tiny speck in the midst of a sandstorm of humanity, they search for all manner of devices to maintain their sanity, their hold on reality, their sense of purpose, their role in life. They struggle with any number of unanswered questions about life and living -- questions whose answers are readily found simply though a walk on a frozen lake or through a sunny meadow or under the canopy of a dense forest.

For me, there is more beauty in a running deer than in a speeding car, more art in the shape of a snowflake than in any painting made by man, more spirituality to be found in a forest glade than in the most magnificent cathedral. If you disagree with me, all right; if you do not, why then, would anyone choose city life over country life? I do not understand, and I am curious. Please, explain this to me, if you can.

This piece began simply as a few random comments to accompany the photograph of the apartment building where I lived last Winter in Warsaw. Somewhere along the way, it became a search for an answer to a question I frequently ask: Why would anyone choose to live in a crowded city?

To draw this to a conclusion, I wish to live for the length of a season in a few more major, metropolitan areas simply for the experience, for learning, for finding out first-hand whether my thoughts and beliefs change in regard to city life and city dwellers. But, as I wrote when I closed Part 1, I do not think I ever will take up permanent residence in one -- at least until I am too old to run in the woodlands and to swim across the rivers.

Crime + book + movie = money

Movie music by Jerry Goldsmith -- for a final time -- with this selection among his seventeen compositions nominated for an Academy Award.

This musical score is from the motion picture, "Papillon," which is not a film about either butterflies or dogs. Sorry, if that disappoints you. Rather, it is a motion picture based on a book written by Henri Charriere, a Frenchman and a petty thief who managed to get himself convicted for the murder of a pimp.

Charriere's story and the subsequent movie describe his years of confinement in prisons in French Guiana, including a few years in the penitentiary on the infamous Devil's Island. He made several attempts to escape before finally succeeding. In all, he spent about twelve years in prison.

As has been the pattern of this series, a clip from the film itself is included to offer a taste of the performance.

Perhaps the moral of Charriere's life is that crime does pay -- if you write a book about it and if someone in Hollywood reads it and likes it.