The Light in a Day
The sun now rises around five and leaves glimmers of daylight close to ten. I don’t remember such long days from my youth, but I am falling into them now with unabashed hedonism. On the perfect days, I’m able to revel in the vibrant moving blues of Lake Harriet’s waters while the boats within her cradle the evening light in their soft white sails. I sit there for as long as nature allows.
During these long days, I am reminded of my love for light. I’m always chasing it to observe the way it falls on and defines the planes of a loved one’s face, how it alters the colors of the most delectable fruits and gives depth to the nuances of their forms. Light dictates our visual experience whether we’re aware of it or not; it makes or breaks works of art; to capture it at the precise moment, to invoke the appropriate mood demands extreme finesse.
Okay, this clearly is not Lake Harriet (I was too in the moment to take a picture!) but the colors are all the same...
Last week I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to see a film screening. Even within the interior of the museum, light continued to find its way to me, presenting itself as a way of life, a necessary new perspective, and worthy of that main character energy I strive to have.
The movie, Perfect Days, follows an older man who works as a toilet bowl cleaner in Tokyo. Living a quiet and solitary life, he finds peace within his every day, allowing his routine to become a spiritual practice. Every day on his lunch break, he gazes up at the trees to observe how the light falls between the leaves. He captures these moments on black and white film, knowing these exact patterns of light and shadow will never repeat.
Perfect Days (2023), Dir. by Wim Wenders
Komorebi, I learned, is his way of life, to live wholly for and within time’s ephemeral moments, to stop and bask in the transient beauty of the natural world. While I have not mastered living for the now, the movie served as a gentle reminder to embrace this time of my life when I don’t have specific future plans, and to just let myself idyll in the light a day provides. The movie also left me with an honest reality, that despite how content one can be, there can still exist the grief and loss of another life not lived. Where there is light, there will always be shadow, but there is beauty within the contrast they create.
Good Morning Empire (1987), Kenji Takahashi.
Good Morning Empire was an appropriate post movie photograph to come across, as it also plays with light and shadow, with an added layer of reflection. I love this photograph because it’s not only an amazing shot and creative perspective, but it makes me think about the fragility of reality. At first glance, it might look like the Empire State is looming through some kind of heaven in an act of spooky grandeur. But as it exists in this photograph, this great, revered structure is now at the mercy of the way the light chooses to hit last night’s rainfall. This building dictates New York’s skyline, but with a simple perspective change, its supremacy can be wholly devoured by a small puddle that sits untended on an empty street. How fickle everything can be under new perspectives.
Admittedly seeking the exit, I wasn’t planning to explore more beyond the above, but Washerwomen’s Lunch stopped me midstride. The painting quite literally glowed (this photo does not do it justice).
Washerwomen’s Lunch (1900), Jean Eugene Buland
While I am not usually drawn to paintings such as these, I could feel the warmth of the sun, as if I too were sharing it alongside these women. There is so much to be praised about the technicality of this painting, for one: the contrast, texture, and translucency achieved in the women’s bonnet is impeccably dynamic. But what brings me in closer is that while the physical sun is not within the frame of the painting, it is undoubtedly the main character within this narrative. All three human subjects are predominantly in the shadows. I focus not on their faces–the sharp contrast from the light does not allow me to. I don’t wonder about who they are, after all, they don’t even speak or interact with one another. What I feel instead is the intensity of the heat on their forearms, the warmth of the towel that drapes over her hands, and the delicacy of the light’s weight as it grazes the wisps of their hair. These women are simply props for the sun’s glory, which makes me think, I must be too.
Now as I sit here in reflection, I think back to the soft glowing sails in Lake Harriet’s waters. I am tickled to think how everything around me only serves as a vessel to hold the magic of the light in a day, both literally and metaphorically. The summer solstice is quickly approaching. While these long days I know are only fleeting, I don’t want to rush to fill them by the hour with planned adventures or weekend getaways. Instead I hope to sit with the light as it dances across the tree tops and pours itself onto my shoulders and thighs; to become part of the painting it will inevitably create on its own. As much as I want to cling to the waning hours of daylight, letting it slip past me as it travels its cyclical path from morning to night may be the more graceful way to celebrate its blessing.
From the notebook
WIP
I’ve easily spent upwards of hundreds of dollars on glazes and clays over the past few months and my experiments are slowly proving worthwhile. Still some minor imperfections that drive me crazy, but I am feeling near confident to start selling.
Media musings
Isabel Allende and Her Mother Told Each Other (Almost) Everything: I loved this podcast so much I let it loop and wasn’t annoyed by the repeated conversation. I was reminded of the power of letter writing, the intimacy it brings between writer and reader, and the intentionality it forces upon us to reflect on how we recount our days and what we choose to remember.
I love Boosters: I went to see this for Keke Palmer and found myself smiling throughout the entire movie. It was an odd, yet super fun watch, accompanied by a great soundtrack, brilliant visuals, and clever satire on very real issues. Here’s an interview with the director.
Cursive Club, Where Students Learn With a Flourish: After school programs across the country now include cursive clubs because it’s no longer part of the standard curriculum. As a constant seeker of the perfect relationship between pen and paper, and a staunch believer in developing and maintaining fine motor skills, I am all for this! Penmanship is very much an art worth preserving.
May whereabouts
Blessed with summer weather
For the MySpace page
Golden hour
My favorite kind of Friday
