Stop and Stare

10 August 2026

A visitor sees a destination. A resident sees the way to work.

People travel to Switzerland for its lakes and mountains. Live here long enough, and even this can become the background to somewhere else.

I took this photograph on a train from Geneva to Bern. Through the dining-car window, the landscape sat between departure and arrival – beautiful, present, yet easy to pass by.

We cannot stop at every view. Nor can we command ourselves to feel grateful every time we look outside. But if visitors can still see a destination where we increasingly see a route, perhaps they are noticing something we have learned to overlook.

How can the extraordinary survive becoming familiar?