Posted on by susurrus

Sometimes I Like Things I’m Not Supposed To Like

Power lines with tree branches silhouetted against the sky

When my sweetheart saw this, he tried to explain how I could remove the power lines with an app. Remove the lines? I like the lines. I like the way the vegetation moves with so much verve around them.

Indulge me. Anthropomorphise the seed heads for a moment and see how they seem to be lifting thin arms in mockery or emulation. Watch the boundaries between natural and man-made fade.

I didn’t get any pleasure from the power lines for a long time. We don’t dangle our lines in the sky for all to see where I’m from, we secretively stash them away. I’d venture to think we don’t need as many lines where I’m from, but then what do I know? 

But if a country is going to have lines in the sky, why not celebrate them? There’s something uplifting about connections and I love the Heath-Robinson quality of these ones. Long may their quirks continue to be of service!

Sorry if this picture sets your sensibilities a-jangling, but I hope you’ll concede it’s an apt submission for today’s Ragtag Prompt: Tracery.

36 Replies to “Sometimes I Like Things I’m Not Supposed To Like”

  1. I like your photo & I like why you like it.
    I don’t typically love power lines by any measure., however I have been thinking again lately about how much we decide unconsciously about how we view the world around us. What’s beautiful, what’s a problem, what’s a opportunity, etc,? Curious how differently people can view things, & ultimately how that can shape our reality..

    1. That’s an interesting chain of thought. We are influenced on how to think from so many directions. It seems like more than ever, but I dare say in the past it was just the same, just from different sources.

  2. Power lines are part of the landscape. You just work them into the composition like you’ve done in this photo.

    1. I have tended to avoid them in the past, but I wanted to capture the colour of the sky and it was changing so rapidly that needs must.

  4. I am all for tucking away power lines, less chance of them coming down and power going out. I love that colour of sky.

  5. I’ve lived in neighborhoods both with above-ground power lines and with power boxes in the yard for access to the underground lines. I definitely prefer them underground. But I liked the way you’ve made them work in the photo.

    1. The do impose a lot on the landscape when they’re in the air. It seems crazy to me when I see the trees pruned to within an inch of their lives to allow them safe passage, but I don’t suppose we can hold the ones who hack them back so harshly responsible for the actions of those who planted them under the lines. My sweetheart tells me the first rule of planting a tree is to look up from where you plan to plant it.

  7. I like power lines too. So long as there are not too many, I think they are a nice architectural presence. The same for wind farms.

    1. I like wind farms too, although large ones can feel very otherworldly. There are a good number of them on the way to the Isle of Man.

  8. I love your photo too. The power lines add character, and I’m glad you didn’t spend hours with Photoshop. Like Ali, I like wind farms too. But I wouldn’t complaint if power lines went underground.

    1. I doubt I could have got rid of them completely, no matter how hard I’d tried. I’d prefer them underground as a rule too.

    1. I wonder if they would all say that? My affection for power lines (such as it is) dates back to having been made to read ‘The Wanderer’ in my teens. The poem only resonated obliquely with me in that it made me think if you were cast out from your settlement in Anglo Saxon times, how happy you would have been to see telegraph wires.

  12. As an arborist, I dislike utility cables. However, I can see how they could be perceived as a visual asset. As a kid, I thought that the big high towers suspending cables over the marshlands of the San Francisco Bay were so sculptural, like the Eiffel Tower. I find such cables compelling as they extend off into the horizon and over hillsides to unknown destinations, like contrails of airplanes on their way to far away exotic places. The bridge that passes almost over our shops at work might be considered to be a mere utilitarian bridge, but I find it to also be of sculptural interest.

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