This evening was one such. I worked a bit late tonight so I was driving home about 8 o'clock. We've had much more rain this summer than I remember getting any other summer I've lived here, and today was another cloudy day. The western sky was clouded over, with a small clear strip just above the mountains. Mostly the mountains were dark, but right in the middle was a break that created a bowl full of pristine, clear orange light that spilled out and lit up the undersides of the clouds. It was raining over the foothills, so the all that glowing orange was softly streaked with grey, and there were very occasional white flashes of far distant lightning. Across the valley the east mountains were also dark through Provo, but up north the point of the mountain was all alight. Around Spanish Fork I could see it was lit with these soft diffused rays shining out from behind the Lake mountains, also streaked with falling rain. It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen and trying to describe it here is so incredibly inadequate.
As I tried to stare at that sunset as much as I possibly could whilst also managing not to wreck my car, I thought about the conversation I had with my friend Bryan last night. We were discussing an experimental opera he'd worked on with some friends this summer and how much he'd enjoyed attending the single performance. I pointed out that, while I understand that the ephemerality (which is apparently a real word?) of something only performed once is a part of the art, I am nevertheless struck by the melancholy of such things. Once they're gone they're gone and if you didn't get to experience them you never will get another chance. Sure there will be other things and other times, but that particular moment is gone.
This is much the same feeling I have every evening driving home.
When I see something like tonight's sunset I feel like I must look at it for as long as it is there. Once it's gone it's gone and if I don't watch it while it's there it might as well never have happened at all. Somehow my experiencing of it adds value. When I think about it rationally I know that isn't true. A beautiful moment is beautiful regardless of observation. And even if it wasn't, surely there is someone else out there who looked up for a moment and noticed those rays of sunlight spilling through those clouds.
But I don't know that. And that places an obligation on me to observe it all if I possibly can. This awesome, gorgeous world has been given to all of us and the least I can do is to appreciate the beauty it provides. I can be the eyes and the memory that record that sunset so that even though it will never happen just the same way ever again, it isn't gone without a trace. Even though I know that doesn't really make any sense. And even though I know, and mourn just a little bit, all the billions of moments that happen every day that I can never observe. I did see this one. I felt that ache in my chest that comes from an exquisite experience.
I looked and I saw and that moment is mine.
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| lacking an actual picture of this evening, this is a picture of a different place at a different time that is sort of similar. got the pic here: http://www.errant-ronin.com/PrudhoeBayUshuaia/PBU-Part07-Mexico-Down.htm |
This blog post is like that sunset. Beautiful! Except not ephemeral, which is nice.
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