Early morning. Green grass. No snow. Outside, the ocean ripples. No white caps. Where I sit on my chaise in the early morning, I cannot see the sun. Yet, I know it is there, just out of view, because the horizon glows. “Too dark,” a friend had said, when I told her I was taking this northeast facing room for my study. I understood. I’m a person who loves light; yet, one of things I love about this room is anticipating the sun’s return as it travels north, its coming and going an essential rhythm of my life.
Now, the sun’s light illuminates a wooden bench I have placed at the edge of the lawn where ragged stone steps lead to a rocky beach, and although none of them is here, I can see each of my grandchildren, the three girls, the boy,hopping rocks, then stooping down to stare silently into a tide pool.
This is the ebb and flow I need in my life, this silent coming and going of sun and light, cool and warmth. Upstairs, Dick, my husband, and the dogs sleep. What wonderful dogs, what perfect dogs to give me these moments of solitude to watch my invisible sun spread its light from bench to grass and now to the railing beside steps that lead to the deck outside my study. How quickly day asserts itself, blue sky, a swath of high white cloud.
And suddenly, I am remembering Margin Call, the movie Dick and I saw last evening, and I am struck by the lack of sun and sky. Wall Street exists in a world of machines, tall buildings with elevators, large rooms filled with computer screens, their unnatural light, their graphs and numbers, surreal, unreal. No where in that movie does sun light a bench or a railing. Men climb to a roof top where artificial light becomes their beauty, and the flickering lights are beautiful—but they obscure the sky, moon and stars.
