Noticing Borders In The Landscape

In Kent England there is a village called Wingham, the contours of which have changed little since the 1700s. On the Canterbury side a distant patchwork of bare fields broadens towards the village walls, sinks slightly into a damp trough, then rises at the determined brickwork. This is a border. The Wingham border is clean. Sudden. A contrast, similar to the contrast of a coastline that marks land from sea. Another great border surely. Similar also to a world of ploughed fields arrested at the edge of a swaying forest. Again, a great border.

Borders. Aren't some people drawn to them? I know of no research on them but it must be there surely. Some choose to live with a border beneath their window ledge, some pace borders, tread them out, and some pass by with a smiling and a searching look, taking them in.

All borders are of one comfortable 'home' side and one risky inhospitable side, aren't they, which, for early-man could be a place to flee when under threat or a place for adventure. The South-American Indian chased to the forest edge, gazes over the plains in thankful dread, but his child may look out in wonderment. 

For you nowadays, you who notice borders at all, dread or wonderment are probably lost. Perhaps you smile though, sometimes only an inner smile but one nevertheless. It's hard to pin the effect down. Is the border pleasing you? Or is it somehow a comfort? Perhaps it is satisfying. The border satisfies a need for 'neatness'. Also a border chimes somehow with the kind of satisfaction perhaps you feel when a problem is fixed effectively and fast. What links geographical borders with effective behaviours is the satisfying move from muddle and mess to some form of direction, isn't it?

When you travel across fields towards an abrupt forest edge (see above), do you who notice borders at all give a nod to the neat join? It is a satisfying geographical feature surely. And when you spy the distant town walls on a journey across flatlands, doesn't the arrangement satisfy you in the way effective action satisfies? In conversation, some women are largely concerned with maintaining friendly relations and venting - you are not looking for irritating suggestions. Others of you pay attention to what's said and search for solutions (when a solution is being called for). It's the latter of you who enjoy borders.

For my own part, the appeal is maybe a little different. I like the drama of something seemingly powerful and therefore unaware of how actually limited it is - being stopped in its tracks. I'm a bitter man no doubt.