Indian Summer
The sun submerges.
Gone are the gleaming shadows of day.
All the vibrant colors melt to grey.
The compulsion to photograph sunsets never ceases to amaze me. It’s as though, despite the fact that I have already taken a dozen on seperate occassions, this one immediately in front of me merits some kind of notice. And while all sunsets are the same, and all sunsets are unique, there is always a significance in that fleeting moment of conversion and change. It may only be that significance, masked by the aesthetic beauty of nature, that compells us to continue trying to capture it…
When the sun set on summer, promising a refreshing and cleansing fall, I was already on my inspirational death bed. So great had my contempt for the world grown through the trials and annoyances of the summer season, that even the prospect of fall completely failed to slow the downward spiral. I merely assumed that once the season commenced, through conversations with the constolation Orion and the bitter slap of the northeastern breeze, I would begin my routine ascention into eager empathy and appreciation…. but after a brief hint of fall, and a few tepid storms, my listlessness grew. As september began to close I succumbed to panic and invoked a host of old tricks to locate the muse. I ditched town for a couple days and returned home with nothing but a blank and unused roll of film. I roamed the sacred places and attempted to fill my nostrils with their presence, but returned without a scent. After weeks of counting the times I put on my tie, took it off, and slept, I began to dispair. My senses had dissolved into placidity, one by one… and it was just that time, when I felt matters couldn’t possibly disagree with me more, that summer kicked in fall’s door and sat it’s bloated, smothering, fat-ass down on my absently resting head with record October heat. It was, quite franky, the ten ton anvil that broke the camel’s back. The humidity invoked unusual insomnia, and I began to feel sickly and weak. On the third day I completely abandoned hope and collapsed unenthusiastically into my bed and dreamt…
I stood on a small pontoon boat with a woman I didn’t know behind the wheel. It was dusk, just moments before total nightfall. The water was a deep shade of bluish black, and the sky was dark grey and shrouded with cloud cover. We were riding huge swells in an unknown, and very large, body of water, gazing at an amazing specticle perhaps a quarter mile away. An island, with some form of factory that resembled an air port hanger jutting out into the water, was kicking up incredibly large waves where the building met the sea. A great square of white churning water lay directly before the hanger, quite a distance away, yet still large and ominous from where we were afloat. I feel uneasy, in general, and impulsively look to my left and see blackness on the horizon, broken only by erratic and urgent lightning. I advise the captain to make for shore quickly, as a storm is approaching, and she complies. The boat races in the opposite direction of the wind and lightning, and the light fades more and more. The sky completely blackens, and the water turns the darkest shade of blue concievable. Standing on the bow, gripping a metal bar to keep my blanace, I notice that a monstrous wave is approaching diagonally at ten oclock. I scream at the captain, and she veers straight into it, accelerating as she does so. The boat begins climbing the wave, racing to the top in hopes of beating the crest. I grip the bar, feeling only fear and helplessness as the boat rockets over the wave and into the air. Weightlessness pervades, and the boat begins to flip over in the air, creating one floating moment prior to a probabble crash and death at sea. In that moment, I awoke.
The following day the heat broke, and a propper storm blew in, carrying with it lustrious scents of ozone, murtle, and perriwinkle. I recieved notice that my grandmother’s apple tree was ripe, and made a quick trip into the country to rob it. I drove the windy state road relaxed and distant, turning left at the dead end and punching the accellerator. Up, up, up the hill I drove until I reached the crest and flew over it, landing hard as the road dissolved into a two-track driveway underneath a canopy of trees. I parked, cut through the valley and the garden, and climbed the perfectly round hill that the apple tree stood on, it’s ancient branches overlooking endless country fieldscapes from it’s vantage point. I climbed to the third branch, plucked an apple, felt it wet and cold in my hands, observed it’s delicate and flawless exterior for a moment, then sank my teeth into it… and it was at that moment, perched on the tree branch, gazing down and across the plains, that the world was once again ignited. Anticipation and appreciation crept back into my conscious, and I celebrated by leaping down off the tree, and sprinting down the hill until my feet could no longer keep up with me. I fell, and rolled laughing through the tall grass, finally coming to rest on my back– arms and legs spread out like a snow angel, fists clutching handfulls of grass, my freshly awakened eyes gazing upwards at the beautiful cloud cover…
And now, once again here I sit, clutching my camera…
Trying to take it’s picture.