Talk Without Speaking

Seeing as how it was the source of so much solace the other night I, again, walked out to the sand and clay cliffs that look out over Wreck Beach. It was a gloomy day when I left work and I noticed that I had not noticed that it had been raining at some point. Am I that absorbed in my work? Hmm, I think not.

Figured it would be likely be a bit bleak but, as it’s a bit windy, that the ocean would be alive and that would be interesting enough.

Wow….oh wow. The sunset that I saw. It was the kind of scene that is really quite pointless to try to describe in words. The kind of scene that might actually be worth burning out your eyes for if only so you could take in it just a tiny bit more (I’m still seeing big black blotches in my vision :))

It was the kind of scene that, were my father painting it *exactly* exactly as it was (which he would not have), would have resulted in me coming along and saying, “Nothing looks like that, that scene can’t exist in reality”. Which would, of course, have resulted in one of our famous discussions about art and paint and light and whether hills can be red and whether the sky is purple.

Holy shit, I miss him.

But I digress…it was beautiful. It was a scene that blotted out joy and sadness and made any questions about the stupidity of this whole life and death deal kind of meaningless for a moment.

It was also sadly un-photographed by me due to me swimming earlier in the day and not wanting to leave my camera in the prone-to-be-broken-into ubc acquatic centre lockers. Perhaps this un-photographed scene ranks #2 in severity. Number #1 remains the scene at the top 1000ft moraine at Summit Lake in Auyuittuq on Baffin Island. Oh my. I need to weld my camera to my arm.

Are these scenes better in my mind? Are they wilder, untamed, upcaptured?

I think I’ll take all future dinners while on this night shift precisely to coincide with the sunset.