![]() When you love and have a feel for a place you invest in and want to protect and grow it, compatible with its origins. It’s great to appreciate and protect the past, but to just be wistful really didn’t get us anywhere. Nostalgia is a deathly attribute, it mires one down. But the more we really explore them, the more we’ll find them fascinating. Most people don’t appreciate where they live. ![]() The answer isn’t always immediately there. “What we acquire by looking are the questions we need to ask. And it seems that we can also learn to read the landscape as a lesson from the past on how to possibly navigate the present, anticipate the future. That’s why we read books, go to the theatre, or read sites such as this. All of these things tell stories.”Īs human beings, we thrive on stories. Perhaps they’ve become commercial spaces maybe they’ve deteriorated or a row is missing and there’s a square brick building now standing that doesn’t seem to fit. You can see how they’ve changed over time. You know then that this was a place of great activity and some amount of wealth after the Civil War. Let’s say you go into an old town center and see Second Empire homes with Mansard roofs. If we understand that places exist in time and in space. ![]() It’s not just an appreciation of the past. “We can draw a lot of sustenance from the physical world around us if we know what to look for. Remembrance and nourishment on some level. One could easily draw certain parallels between the concept of deep travel and other practices of mindfulness, such as the slow food movement. Small wonders, but nevertheless things that add intrigue to our landscape, and our lives and really enrich the place we live. “If we look at the common places that we see every day as if we were on vacation, with that heightened awareness, we’ll find wonders we never imagined. Leff, like some kind of archeologist of abandoned buildings and byways. I find that the more I look around me, the more interesting things I see.” Painted rocks (Cornwall’s infamous frog leaps from the pages), roadside springs, even Quonset huts excite Mr. “I grew up here and just never lost that childlike curiosity about things. Such intriguing surprises crop up throughout this delightful collection of beckoning observations. Did you know that the hollow, cast metal gravestones were made in Bridgeport around the time of the Civil War? Neither did we. Leff’s recent book, Hidden in Plain Sight: A Deep Traveler Explores Connecticut,” no zinc tombstone is left unturned. Old mile markers and street names capture his interest, “They are the biography of community,” as do a host of other often overlooked landmarks in Mr. I try to notice things that are a little different and off kilter.” We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that stop signs and lights are likewise observed. ![]() I always have a pen and pad and most of the time, a camera with me. He admitted to being the type of guy to veer off should something catch his eye. If you’re steering down a back road in Connecticut and the car in front of you seems to slow a lot, break a bunch, perhaps even pull over suddenly, it very well could be that author David Leff is in the driver’s seat. David Leff Reveals What’s Hidden in Plain Sight
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