Painting with light

I don’t know about you but I am in need of a bit of beauty in my life. I’m irritable, annoyed and just plain fuming in this moment; right now, slouched here on the couch, with the TV droning inanely alongside, my laptop perched humming on my lap.

If this post is only for me then it will have served its purpose. But I hope not. I hope it’s perfect for where you are at too …

One Friday evening earlier this month, after I had finished supper, I glanced outside and responded to the streaked sky by grabbing my camera and rushing the few hundred steps down to the cool January-evening beach. There I was met by a display that only a lovingly-created poem or carefully-crafted watercolour could have captured adequately.

I sat on my haunches and marvelled at the reflections, at the waves gliding towards me and up the beach – different every time. And at the driftwood sculpture, which had escaped the teenagers’ planned beach bonfire, now serving only as the focal point to my photographic canvas. The next evening would be completely different, as would the next and the next.

And so, I stayed to savour the moment – my dessert devoured by my niece back at the cabin. But it was worth it – this sunset-dessert to the day nourishing the soul more than any s’mores ever could have.

Observing this ever-changing sunset, I felt a bit like U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins who wrote the following:

Watercoloring

The sky began to tilt,
a shift of light toward the higher clouds,
so I seized my brush
and dipped my little cup in the stream,

but once again I streaked the paper gray
with a hint of green,
water began to slide down the page,
rivulets looking for a river.

And again, I was too late -
then the sky made another turn,
this time as if to face a mirror
held in the arm of an outstretched God.

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