There are certain moments in our natural world when light and dark play and mix in a way that makes me stop dead in my tracks.
I wonder how can something so simple as light can make the world around me jump out like that, not just jump, but jump up and down and shout:
YOO HOO. I AM A BEAUTIFUL FIELD. NOTICE MEEEEEE … YOU BIG SILLY GIRL!
It often happens in the afternoon hours as the sun is on its way down in the sky. The light changes, and suddenly the sun casts a gold veil over hill and dale and gives everything a deeply rich jewel tone. How does this happen? Is it the angle, the temperature of the light, the weather?
I try not to overthink it. But I do know that this light is best experienced in wide open natural spaces, in farmer’s fields, or any combination of the two.
The effect is amplified a hundredfold if there happens to be a sky covered with rolling dark clouds, each heavy with thunder and brimful of rain. Sometimes there’s a spectacular rainbow married to this sky, sometimes there isn’t, or sometimes the rainbow is just a indistinct smear of washed out watercolour, the kind that you almost have to squint to see properly, the kind that if you want to share it with someone else you need to point and use specific directional language such as LOOK, OVER THERE, UP HIGH …
Rainbows aside, I am drawn to this sky-blue-gold-green-field image time and time again, in photos, in art, in real life. I can’t say no to it. I must give in. I watch, willing witness, and breathe my thanks and hope that I’ll see it again. This sky infuses me with some unknown commodity which somehow makes everything good.
I feel sad knowing people are missing this view. I wonder if I’m the only one who’s looking.
* I’ve decided I’m going to start keeping track.
