Thursday, April 21, 2011

Invisible Walling

Dry stone walls just look right. They don't jump out at you like billboard signs. They don't get in your face that way. They fit into the scenery. They don't need to be noticed. The better a wall is built the less it stands out, to the point that people stop noticing it all together. Walls allow people to see other things like the houses or the view or the garden or the trees in the neighbourhood. A dry stone wall is the perfect compliment to its surroundings.

Often people don't realize they are looking at a damn good wall. They might, as they stand there forget that they were feeling so cold for instance. They might stop being so bothered about what someone said about them - or that the mail was late - or they had to cut the lawn soon - or any number of other unimportant things.

They take a deep breath and enjoy where they are. The wall, the very thing that created this inner sense of rightness, is often not even in their sphere of consciousness. It's a funny thing. The wall is not actually in the picture. A good dry stone wall is sort of like invisible fencing. Most people just don't see it.