“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.” ― Mary Oliver
How to describe the scene on Saturday? Even as I studied it, trying to impress the view into my mind, I knew words would never be enough. It was the kind of sky that would refuse to cooperate with a camera – pictures would be but a wan retelling. A painting might convey the essence if the canvas spread large and sacred – the ceiling of a chapel, for instance, or a Grand Central-type Station. A place resounding with journey, spiritual, literal, both.
To the west, ocean like molten glass, lifting, curling, peeling, settling, the white foam triangulating across the blue. Clouds stretching out like God’s hand has cast forth this magic, the heel of his palm just off Trinidad head, the fingers reaching overhead. The clouds and the sky around them drift purple, pink, lavender, warm shades of blue. To the north, distant bright hills silhouetted against increasing darker mountains, flat like paper cutouts one behind the other. Eastward, beach rising into sand dunes, muted foliage an afterthought below the foghorns. Behind the dunes, more mountains, green, like the sky on this side of the world. Patches between cotton balls gleam an aqua that would drive a painter crazy trying to mix. The jetty pokes out on the south side, dolosse like car-sized children’s jacks piled against the rocks and concrete jutting into the sun’s rays. A lone fisherman stands on the farthest edge, his frame and rod a quick sketch, “put a fisherman here.” Out beyond the jetty, an eruption of spray causes me to gasp and then cry out, “Whales!” as if I’m a child seeing a puppy for the first time. I’m drowning in beauty. I cannot breathe from it. But I don’t need to; the world is breathing for me.
Beautiful….
Aw, thanks, Kym!
I love our world. It takes ones breath away. Thanks for the share…
Thanks for that, I could feel it…
BTW, please accept my apology, I am sorry for saying/thinking that you wrote the ‘where to surf’ article. I stand corrected.
“a wan retelling…”
“Dolosse”
“I am drowning in beauty.”
Your writing is remarkable, Jen. I love any piece that has me looking up a word (dolosse), or re-reading a phrase as a future creative touchstone….
I love it when the writer admits she’ll fall short of the subject itself, but she takes it as a challenge to try and verbally capture the visual. Your words recall that sense of “smallitude” i feel when faced with Nature’s grandeur.
This one moved me. Thanks.
Thank you! Such kind words.