grace

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A moment of twilight

Twilight has been my favorite time of the day for a long time. I am certain that if it’s caught just right we witness a thinning in the veil between places concrete and divine.

This reflection beautifully describes the experience of twilight.

From Live and Learn – David Kanigan

 

75 minutes before sunrise, I start out in darkness, and slide into Twilight.

90 consecutive days, same loop, 5 miles, Cove Island Park and back.

I had to Google it, because I didn’t know what it was called, the in-between time between night and sunrise.

Twilight: “the soft glowing light from the sky when the sun is below the horizon, caused by the refraction and scattering of the sun’s rays from the atmosphere.”

I have no clue what all that means —  and no interest in learning more.

I’m deep into Kate Zambreno’s new book: Drifts: A Novel. My kind of book. She describes it as “Prose, little things, I stammer out.” (I wish I could stammer, spit and cough out anything close to this.)

Her words: “A shock of color out of nowhere.” And that’s exactly what it was. Look at it. The photo above, taken @ 5:24 a.m

. 24 minutes before sunrise. 24 minutes before sunrise. Where does this light, this ‘shock of color’ come from?

In a different time, a different scene, she goes on to talk about “the light of Vermeer’s paintings. Their silence and mystery…So often the painting seems to be of the same room, at the same picture window… whether the sun floods in directly or diffusely.”

And so here we are. 90 consecutive days on this same walk. The same room, the same picture window, a new Vermeer each morning.

I tuck my camera into my bag, and head home. I twist in my earbuds and listen to Audible pumping in the narration.  She closes out her book on an Albrecht Durer quote, back in the 1500’s (before the internet, before digital cameras):

“What beauty is, I know not, though it adheres to many things.”

And so it does Albrecht, so it does.

Notes:

  • Photo: 5:20 a.m. The Cove, Stamford, CT. July 30, 2020.
  • Inspired by: “The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.” ~ Eden Phillpotts, from “A Shadow Passes”
  • Book Review of Kate Zambreno’s book “Drifts: A Novel”: “Locked in a Creative Struggle, With Rilke as Her Guide” by Catherine Lacey, NY Times
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So many silences

The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.

And there are so many silences to be broken.

Quote: Audre Lorde
Photo: Trevor Cole

quote and image – Gratefulness.org

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Be gentle

 

A reminder to be gentle. These words appeared on my Facebook page just the other day. They offered an unfamiliar sense of calm, a calm I was grateful for. Tensions rise high as we try to get through this time of sickness and solitude. I see this in the news, talk about it with friends and sense it from the caregivers who come into my home to assist me. It is hard to feel settled, it takes focus to remember that we need to be a little extra right now.

I think of a conversation I just had with my mother. Here we sit in the same town and yet we have not been able to see each other, except ever so briefly, for the last four months. The retirement community where my parents live has done an amazing job of keeping residents safe. But, in order for this to happen visitors have been restricted. The distance between us is only a few miles but they might as well be the miles that stretch from coast to coast. How easy it was to take for granted the moments spent sharing dinner around a table, watching sports far into the evening or sitting quietly together reading books and telling stories. How we long for those moments now. And that longing can be exhausting. 

To encourage, to stretch towards laughter – this takes intention and energy. I realize that each of us ebb and flow in our energy. When I am tired, really tired of having to hold back my concerns or my sense of loss, someone else rises with energy and kindness. This is like a dance. We greet one another in whatever way possible knowing that each of us experience the same thing right now. We are all drastically impacted by the same thing right now. 

It’s a rare moment. A moment where we have a choice to show up impatient, reacting out of exhaustion or to show up letting that go, showing compassion and kindness.

The presiding Bishop reminds us that we’ve only just begun. This is hard to imagine but knowing it’s true, how much easier could it be for us to move ahead with open hands and a soft heart?

 

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Attending to life

Attending to life is an act of love.

 

Quote: Katie Rubinstein
Photo: Journey Yang