I posted my pictures separately but collectively, I have a similar response to all of them. The y open and they close. Like that line in E.E. Cummings poem “somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond”: i do not know what it is about you closes and opens. Belfast is both fucking terrifying and extremely fascinating. I feel closed when I’m there because of the walls they have built to separate the Catholics and the Protestants. I feel opened because the people are so welcoming. I guess all cities really open and close people but I started today feeling out of place and like an alien and by the end of it, I fell in love with the locals and the rich culture.
I have very similar feelings. And is a city its collection of buildings and walls or the people who live in them? Belfast makes me sad sometimes, but hopeful more times. I feel like artists and writers have a job to do here.