The writer.
I’ve been featuring video shot during our 2019 trip to St. John since episode 47. Revisiting what I wrote to accompany that edition – and almost every one since – pining away for past times is clearly my recurring theme. Honoring the present does remain vastly important for me, always, and yet, this digital pathway is sure to involve even more savoring of sweet, bygone times.
Dipping back into this original series I first launched a decade ago, I am finding it is both a fascinating time capsule and a deeply meaningful map to the future.
Sunset over St. John’s Bordeaux Mountain, U.S. Virgin Islands.
Poetry by Roger Darnell
Some people ask if Beth and I are always on-the-go, constantly experiencing exotic locations and their wonder. It’s easy to wish that was so, but for now, normal day-to-day life in our Asheville treehouse feels like the best-case scenario.
Each episode of Rare Air encapsulates some moment where I was completely immersed in recording another of Mother Nature’s sacred revelations. Sublime visions such as these – and others exponentially more spectacular – play out constantly on this extraordinary planet of ours. Leaning in offers me yet another opportunity to appreciate the past, and hope for what might come in the future if all goes well.
Life keeps pressing us forward, while this expanding chronicle keeps drawing me back into vacation days of the past. Each time we return from vacation and reconform to our standard mode of living, we become hyper-aware of the differences. Too bad we all can’t hang around in paradise, eat all our meals in colorful restaurants, and let the good times roll, each and every day.
The project has become an essential component of the demonstration of this belief: As an artist, I have something to say.
I sincerely look forward to hearing from you any time.
I sincerely look forward to hearing from you any time.