We met locally and walked together to Mounts Pond on Blackheath Common. The pond comes and goes, depending on the season, and it was completely dry when we visited, on 26 May 2025. This is a site that Carol had visited daily for months in the period when she was writing her book Mimic Pond (Shearsman, 2024). David had also walked in the local area during the period when he was writing his book Present Continuous (Pamenar, 2022). Each of the books, among many other things, thinks about common land and the history of radical protest. On the day, after some discussion over a picnic lunch, we went our separate ways on the Common, each walking and following particular lines of thought. Our prompts, chosen for optional orientation in our walks, were the following:
A pond, mooring in air. Carol Watts, from Mimic Pond Air has no Residence, no Neighbor, No Ear, no Door, No Apprehension of Another Oh, Happy Air! Emily Dickinson, from poem 989 (Franklin) things are vibrations that steady briefly their locality is variable a continual tending or tuning to the place Thomas A Clark, from Farm by the Shore
We met for a recollection later that afternoon, and, after we had generated traces in response to our walking, again in September.
Some traces of our fieldwork are available here. Carol Watt’s Mimic Pond (Shearsman, 2024) David Grundy’s Present Continuous (Pamenar, 2022)
