‘Private’
A wrought iron gate cordons off a small and somewhat mysterious flight of stone stairs in the Tower of London.
The sign spells out the obvious.
It’s a classier warning sign than the one I featured in the recent post No Admittance, but amounts to the same thing really.
The bars pictured here are signifiers of more than privacy – they emphatically spell isolation.
The Tower, in bygone times, was home to many prisoners, who I suspect had way more privacy than they would have liked…
Window, Tower of London October 2019
We all want to be seen to be broad minded and to be the one to take the wider perspective.
This shot of a window in the Tower of London (a prison to many unfortunates centuries ago) gives a little lie to that virtue.
For there is a time to take the narrow view.
When it is the only view.
When you are in darkness, or a jail of circumstances beyond your control.
Then the sliver of light and the merest glimpse of the exterior is enough to give hope.
Some small positivity, manageable to a damaged spirit.
The whole luminescent world of possibility is too much to contemplate in that grim time.
If you are there, as I have undoubtedly been, it’s okay to do only what you can and take the narrow view…
I was intrigued by this suit of armour at the Tower of London when I visited there in October.
Shiny, superbly crafted and protective to the nth degree…lots to admire then.
But…
“When we have built up armour against all the bad things we think might happen in the world, we have a false sense of protection and have only built up isolation”. -Tara Stiles
You name it – defensiveness, cynicism, aloofness – they only will only leave you alone in your corner in the end.
And those eye slits are not the best way to view the wonder and possibilities of the world!
” Quoth the raven -“Nevermore”.”
Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Raven’
One of the famous ravens at the Tower Of London – darkly majestic avians that rule the roost and would seem to know all the secrets of the place, secrets that, erm, might otherwise be nevermore…
Curves of a different sort today.
This time around it is a stone passageway in the White Tower of the Tower Of London.
Visited there yesterday and walked the same steps and corridors and under arches as the infamous prisoners and dead of history. Spooky!
History ( the Tower is soaked in it, like blood on chopping block! ) is linear and a tale told only in retrospect. You know how you got from A to B.
If you put yourself in the moment of a place, as I tried to ,it is all twists and turns, dark corners and bright windows of the unexpected.
Cruel curves, awful arches…
Ebb Then Flood 