November 2020
“Pandemic Perspectives”
Afterword: Helen sums up the Pandemic Perspectives thread
Things are changing visibly, daily again, as they did at the start of lockdown back in March. Hillend has come back into
view once more, as the leaves of 2020 fall from the horse-chestnut opposite.
During a November week of still air and stunning cloud inversions, the Pentland cleughs filled with mist. Partially
recognisable hilltops emerged from a sky-sea, the mingled elements creating an elevated shoreline liminality. It’s hard not
to try to find metaphors in this, as we face an uncertain winter and new, changeable restrictions, and take in the hopeful
news: progress with a vaccine; Joe Biden as the US President elect and Kamala Harris the first woman and person of
colour to be VP elect.
Back home, PBF posters and ribbons festoon local landmarks. To mark the end of this project, I placed and photographed
ribbons in (and then removed them from) locations I’d written about for this thread.
It’s been a privilege to read, see and assemble a rich array of responses: words on memory, in-the-moment presence,
and virtual reality; visual representations – drawings, paintings, photographs, maps - of our place at this time. Here’s to
the magic of language and landscape; here’s to the future.
