Fading light

The setting sun can delineate outlines more clearly than the bright mid-day sun. When the dark shadows fills up the rest, one can clearly see the outer limits, the boundaries, and the personality without the distraction of the colors. It is a black silhouette laid bare against the fading orange of the day.

It was just a passing sight, the distant mountain peaks sharpened by the evening light. My eyes were transfixed at the outline for the little time that the moving bus afforded me the panorama. I pass by them every morning and evening on my way to work, but their lofty size and personality was a revelation to me. I was moved by the clarity of the view..

They call it ‘the last light’..
If you look closely, every beautiful sentiment is mirrored in arts, songs, poems, literature in some form already. The real joy is to experience it in its full force in a completely unsuspecting moment. It is a deeply personal experience, yet it qualifies as a shared experience not at a physical level but at a completely ‘ether level’-somewhere in your imagination.

This may be a good time to confess my love for the Readers Digest back in the 80’s. I can honestly say that it has been the reference point for a lot of ‘ether’ moments in my life. Back as a school kid I used to go to the town public library to pick up old Readers Digest editions and devour them under the winter sun. The warm anecdotes with gentle humor, personal stories of courage and fortitude particularly warmed my soul. But embarrassingly what stayed with me is a diary scribbled with quotes I found beautiful. Most of them expressed emotions that I had not personally experienced and wisdom which was much beyond my years but I felt a connection and the words stayed with me.

So once i reached home, i searched for my old tome and found these lines that i had once scribbled in my (once) shapely cursive slant and read them back again.

"By a departing light

We see acuter, quite,
Than by a wick that stays.
There's something in the flight
That clarifies the sight
And decks the rays"-Emily Dickinson.

Its a sense of the ending that makes the beginning and all that from there-so much more meaningful. Going along in the old routine, we get into a kind of acquiescent numbness. We need to be jolted out of our numbness. You must look at things not only as if you were seeing them for the first time but as if you were seeing them for the last time, as if you were never to see them again and had to take them all in and remember them for ever.

I find myself in this state of deep inertia where I hear myself talk about change but I am unable to move a muscle. And when i looked out of the bus window, i saw a metaphor for my own life- a wake up call before darkness. The darkness of my own disappointments.

I just hope to do better and see the light again.