The images that stay with me- ice, desert, sea, and city- are all a little lacking in human warmth. Their appeal is more to the spirit and imagination than to the needs and cravings of the body. These landscapes are either thinly peopled or unpeopled, and even the city is admired when it is nearly empty. To none does the word intimate apply. Aren39;t there homey places that I can recall? Yes, there are. But in contrast to sublime nature and the great city, I must make a conscious effort to recall them. This is not in itself surprising, for people generally do not take note of the sensorially complex and familiar-- the all-eveloping cocoons of daily life. There is another reason for the meagreness of intimate images in my adulthood- living alone. Intimacy need not, of course, be with another ...