London patterns

When I was looking at the plane trees, it struck me that they recreate this mottled pattern...

There's something soothing in these patterns... layers, the colours that complement each other. A randomness that is yet a pattern.

They say that in the natural world there are no straight lines, no perfect geomentric forms... yet we humans seem to yearn for them in our creations.

That is the National Portrait Gallery and St Martin's in the Field behind. No field now. I once went in for a concert - they have free concerts in the church, which is rather a lovely thing to do. Once I also left my bag or phone or coat in a restaurant just behind the church. Fortunately, I knew the manager and he managed to ensure it was kept safe for me.

My life seems to create mottled patterns rather than straight lines or perfect geometric shapes. I guess most people's lives do. Imagine a life in which, at 13 you planned to be a journalist and rose to the height of that profession... oh, actually I know people who have done that. Some aspects of life, though, surely, are not shaped by will to follow such ideal trajectories. I know people who imagined they'd be parents, but that couldn't happen. Who thought they'd be with a man, but fell in love with a woman. Who wanted to work in one field and found themselves thriving, or struggling, in another. Who suffered disease or loss...

We have this mirage of control. That we can make time stand still or make it run. But not that, not tides, not other people or governments or climate or anything is ever in our dominion at all.