It is getting close to the end of 2015. Since all types of endings are either bigger or smaller borderline rites, they need some sort of celebration. If not celebrating, than just being noted. Noted and noticed.
The two first days of November marked a new beginning for the last stretch of the year. Those were the days when London became covered, smothered and embraced by its famous fog. As a rather young Londoner, I’ve seen my share of fogs in here, but never anything like that. Never a carpet of fog that would last for 48 hours.
I spent most of the waking time within those 48 hours walking the Wanstead Flats and part of the Epping Forest. Sometimes alone, sometimes with my lover, sometimes with a bigger group of people.
During those hours, each meter of the Flats was turned into a playground I had never encountered before. I knew I was not there on my own, yet every time when the fog revealed yet another person, the glimpse of a human figure arrived as a soothing realization of not being alone. In that sense, fog is like philosophy. It reveals that you are not alone in the space you are inhabiting. Not often does philosophy take physical shape in such a grand manner.
Of course, everything becomes ridiculously romantic in this type of ephemeral, temporary landscape. From photographing strangers exiting a white wall to trying to decipher where the sitting heron ends and the tree branch starts. And then trying to decipher whether it was a heron at all and what became of the strange man squatting on the lake shore.
Fog Philosophy would make for a gorgeous essay collection subject. The collection would touch on topics of accidental holiness and patches of ground created for dancing and dancing only. It would speak of the ritual joining of the visible and invisible space, of depth, about the landscapes of air and of walking into possibilities. In this type of world, mythologies would become the everyday.
Institute of Wander 
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