Sunset Stage

 

 

August 17, 2020

 

Greetings from the glimpses,

 

I felt them before I saw them the first time.  A soft vibration on the earth, muffled by the grass.  I didn’t assign any image to it; my attention was on the book I was reading.  Then I looked up to see what it might be.

 

On most summer nights I sit on my deck and watch the sun make its way to the western rim of the world, sometimes gathering purple and pink clouds along the horizon as it presses toward the trees.  Some evenings it inches across spotless blue sky, pausing to paint the world in glorious warmth, deep gold and orange, color that stays even after the sun has moved on to shine elsewhere.

 

They go by first in groups, a few together, and then the space is empty and then a few more, then one.  Then another.  I can’t focus fast enough so the first image I have is blurred motion.  I realize after a minute that my mouth is open, a reaction of awe, as if I’d seen a shooting star.

 

Somewhere in ‘Cannery Row’ Steinbeck describes ‘the Seer’, a man who lives on the beach there, who says to his friend, Doc; “It's time I go watch the sunset now. I wouldn't be much of a seer if I didn't do that. I've even come to think that it wouldn't go down without me.”

 

I don’t quite believe the sun waits for me, but some evenings it seems to.  I sit in my chair or on the edge of the deck and breathe in the scent of evening, watch the first fireflies accumulate in the low places, and watch through the row of trees to see what the day’s end will say.  It is a quiet bookend to my day, matching the space I write in this moment, still waiting for the sun to make its return.  

 

It is a little disorienting, their movement so fast that it almost makes the trees appear to be moving, a parallax effect of sorts.  They are wearing bright clothing.  Some of the boys are shirtless.  They are running, a few talking, calling out to those behind, but mostly the sound I hear is of runners moving across grass.

 

It is probably the local cross-country team, practicing for whatever might be in store if school resumes.  I have seen them gathering in clusters around town, their outfits more cheerful than their disposition sometimes, working out on the hill, or running the paths through the parks.

 

Here they are running around the field that lies on the other side of the line of pines near my deck, the place where I idle to watch the sun bid adieu.  I know without looking they are running loops in the grass, skirting the soccer field, around the elementary school, back onto the grass.

 

The second orbit brings them past me again, but now there is no talking.  All I hear is their breathing, I hear it before I see them.  They are working harder now, there is no laughing, no teasing comments, only the effort.  It has not evened out for them yet, so they are struggling, gasping, as their bodies find a tempo that will allow their lungs to catch up.

 

And then they flash between the pines again.  They are more spread out, so I am seeing this fluttering image of runners in the open spaces between the trees, like a film that has come off the projector reel.  One boy disappears and a different replaces him, and then they reappear in a different frame.

 

I sit under the canopy of a maple tree, an old friend now, and watch through the line of trees to the west that frame the sunset.  I find peace in watching the day conclude itself, feel a connection to the bazillion moments it has repeated this, and know that the world is spinning in greased grooves.  The moment is seasoned with another experience, new and yet familiar.

 

It is a peculiar stage they are on.  They are unaware of any audience, lost in their own thoughts, doing the work, unselfconscious, sweating, pushing themselves.  I see girls now, weaving between the greenery, passing each other as they run from stage right to stage left. 

 

My experience with watching runners, as observer, is surprisingly limited.  I have been a serious runner for four decades, long enough to be less serious now, but I rarely have watched others run unless I am running.  I am a poor spectator, or perhaps I have been in the wrong venues.

 

As I watch them go by, these young people, stripped of guile and posing and cell phones and the things that cling to teenagers, I can see them as they are, even in these pine parsed glimpses.  They are nearly in their natural state.  If you saw them you would be inspired and hopeful.

 

Sometimes the deer will ease out of the woods behind the house and, after a moment to be sure it is safe, they run full out across the field, just for the joy of running.  The first time I saw this I thought they had been startled, but the truth of it is they need to feel the glorious pain and joy of going all out across the open space.  They flash by between the pines, light thunder on the grass, in their natural state, beautiful creations, living one of their purest expressions.

 

The third time they pass there are fewer runners, spread out more.  The last of them pass more slowly, grinding now, redfaced, sweaty, wheezing against the demand the body makes.  I see pain, but also determination.  Each one appears, blinks behind a pine, and becomes another runner.  Behind them and ahead of them, they each become some other runner, each step taking them to that new reality. 

 

I am perched in this place to watch the sun give permission to close up the day, to see what art it will create to celebrate what we made of the waking hours.  Into that tableau, the sun poured light on this gift, these flawed and perfect examples of human experience, fluttering between the trees as living testimony to what we are capable of.

 

As I write this I remember the Seer was known for more than making eccentric observations and mystical references to goings on, he was also literally seeing the ebbs and flows of Cannery Row, and giving his perspective to those who might listen.  Granted, the most valuable morsels were rare moments of lucidity in his storms of tangled thinking, but if one was paying attention there was a chance to learn things.  For any of you who have visited this space more than once, you might recognize a similar experience.

 

The sun finds a unique way of creasing the horizon each evening.  Those of you who are watching know this, whether you see mountain vistas or rippling ocean.  Some evenings it melts in a golden orange puddle, sometimes it pulls puffy white covers over it, dropping into night.  Other times it sends dramatic fingers of light between the clouds, sometimes long after it’s gone it will paint a single cumulus messenger a bright pink, a final note from wherever the sun is next.

 

And some nights the sun outlines the shape of runners flashing between pine trees, fluttering whirls of color, simple and yet so filled with life and possibility you may find yourself with your mouth agape at the beauty of it.

 

Hope this finds you watching the spaces,

 

David

 

 

 

Copyright © 2020 David Smith