Browsed by
Category: light

One Hour Late

One Hour Late

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Morning comes late out here on the western edge of the eastern time zone. It’s 8 a.m. and the day is still groggy and gray.

If I lived here full-time, I might be less a morning person, more a creature of the night. In summer it’s light here till 10 p.m. and even in winter it’s long past 5 before the day goes away.

I think how far the light has to travel, what it passes on the way. The hills and hollows, cities and towns, birds and trees. Daylight sweeping east to west, bringing us morning …  one hour late.

Where We Are

Where We Are

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Lights strung along rooftops, wound around tree trunks and lampposts. Nets of lights on shrubs and hedges. Spotlights on wreathed front doors.

At the far end of my neighborhood is a house with a backyard that dips down into the woods. I never know where the yard ends and the woods begin. Except this time of year.

We light our lives to taunt the darkness. But along the way we outline them too.

The lights tell us where we are.

Light from Inside

Light from Inside

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A gray morning. I turn on the tree lights early. I sit and work beside the fir.

At first it distracts me, so many ornaments have stories. And even the shape of the tree this year — a widened base, giving it a solid, grounded feel — draws my gaze.

But I strengthen my resolve. I will myself to see it only from the corner of an eye.  To work beside it, to let its presence spur and not derail the day.

Less than a week until solstice; the light must come from inside.

Home Light

Home Light

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The light these days feels thin, stretched — a blanket too short to cover my toes. But it’s all we have, this light, so sometimes I walk twice, early and late, my breath a cloud, my feet warming to the pace, drawing out the day.

By the time I’m finished, stars shine in the darkening sky and I’ve come to a house where lamp light glows yellow through tall windows and porch lights wink beside the door.

Then I realize: It’s for this light I’ve come — for a glimpse of the familiar through altered eyes, for the light of my own house welcoming me home.

All Lit Up

All Lit Up

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Days grow short. Light grows scarce. It’s as good a time as any to add a lamp to a once-dark corner.

This arrangement won’t work when the kitchen table is fully occupied. But of course, it seldom is anymore.

With the lamp the table seems inhabited again. Warm, calm, illuminated and fully present. I’ve stopped being surprised by what light can do.

Light through Leaves

Light through Leaves

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All morning long I’ve watched the leaves wag in the cool breeze, the light filter through the canopy to the deck and the French doors into the living room, where I work.

All morning long I’ve wanted to capture that light in word and image. Now that I’ve snapped the photo, I can’t think of anything to add.

It’s autumn, the rains have ended.

Light through leaves.

Light on Water

Light on Water

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I walk when the time is right, when the writing and the chores are done. I don’t always consider the quality of the light.

Maybe I should.

Yesterday, Copper and I made our way through the woods as the sun slanted low through the oaks, glanced at their roots and spotlit the creek. The water shimmered in response, gave up its secrets, its depth, its hurry.

The light was a laser pointer teaching the landscape. Look here, it told me, here are sights you should not miss.

Same Route, New Light

Same Route, New Light

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I drove to Kentucky yesterday — but left Virginia about six hours later than I usually do. The Blue Ridge were not the morning smudge on the horizon they usually are; they were full-bodied mountains rising in the west.

The little trail at the White Sulphur Springs rest stop had no trace of morning mist. It was shimmering in the midday sun.

And that last hour to Lexington was strangely peaceful, with darkness closing in fast.

All along the way I marveled at the road. I knew it was the same one, the map told me so. But the light said something different.

A Bar of Light

A Bar of Light

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Walked downstairs Saturday morning to see a bar of light across the wall, and, only a few feet away, another one across the carpet. Not just an ordinary spot of brightness but a dotted bar of louvered light cast by the shutters at the front windows.

Maybe it was just because I wasn’t fully awake, but when I saw this I had to grab the camera and snap a shot. It seemed such a randomly beautiful way to start the day.

And today, when it’s cloudy and there is no sunshine to pour through the little top window of the front door and the half-shuttered windows of the living room, it’s randomly beautiful all over again.

Late Light

Late Light

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There is so much we will do with it, this light. Porch sitting, weed pulling, trampoline bouncing, bike riding, hammock swinging, night walking.

There is so much we will dream in it. So many long evenings not quite in this world or the other but squarely between the two of them.

The map of our summer has not yet been drawn, or even the map of our spring.

But the late light is here. The rest can’t be far behind.