Dipping: it’s the sort of motion that some birds indulge in,
pigeons for example, and some wading birds. And for that matter old men with
one foot, one eye in the gutter where they (used to?) look for dog-ends. Old
men, street people, rough sleepers – I see them in small assemblies conversing
in bird yelps and hollow bear growls; dead eyed they want my money. Patiently
they dip this way and that, their dogs curled at their feet, waiting with some hidden anticipation for Armageddon, the righting of wrongs.
Seeing your reference to Summers-Bremner reminds me that
some years ago I read a couple of books by Rebecca Solnit: Wanderlust – A
History of Walking and A Field
Guide to Getting Lost. Certainly both worth
dipping into. This was a few years after coming upon, as it were, by the
wayside, the three words – walking, talking and writing – and stringing them
together into walkingtalkingwriting. Strung together like that opened up a
field of enquiry, a practice and a life style. Lights went on and continue to
shine brightly even if habit appears to relegate them to the edges. An
attractive quality that serves as a shorthand definition of what it is to be
human. Walking leads to talking leads to mark making leads to culture . . .
The author is born; no authority could be without it. Not
any more. Simple, i’n’it!