LOOKING FOR THE LIGHT
This is such a tense title for me. At certain times in my life I have sought light; I might be walking, exhausted, with holes in my socks, stumbling every so often, greasy haired with tiredness, in search of the purity I imagine comes with not sleeping; walking and walking and walking round and round the hospital ward. Or I might be seeking meaning or enlightenment or the exact opposite, expressing anger that there is no meaning and no point which can be much the same as seeking something.
I prefer to ignore those times, they have never ended well and tend to have involved me, sectioned, gathering, over the weeks, a new collection of scars that I then have to wonder how to explain to the curious young children who have turned up in my life in recent years.
There is something much more beautiful to me. I would hesitate to call it spiritual or meaningful as I do not really know what that actually is but the light, especially in natural surroundings, always does it for me.
I used to go to Skerray in the very north of mainland Scotland with my old family and will never ever forget the long golden evenings as the sun set over the grass and heather, turning everything wondrously rich and warm and ethereal. To sit outside an old croft house while the sheep were bleating, to watch the evening burnish the land amber was breath taking.
Nowadays I spend many hours walking by the Clyde where the seals and curlews live, where the geese raise their heads suspiciously in the fields as me and Dash the dog walk past. The sea is always different. At the moment it is so commonly splashed with sparkling silver when the sun pierces the gaps between the dark clouds. I love it. I love the ribbon of light on the sea; the dancing diamonds on a sunny day.
I especially (like in Skerray), love to sit on a rock by the shore with my dog as the sun sets behind the Renfrew Hills, highlighting the windfarms, to watch the sky turn orange, the sparse clouds light up with a soft pinkness, the water grow both dark and smoothly yellow in its ripples. At this time, listening to the lap of the water, the call of seabirds, over the other side of the Firth the sound of ships still being loaded in their docks.
At these times I am transported. I am impatient, so I rarely wait for the sky to turn from that golden evening into the growing blue black of the night.
When I do wait and I see the moon and I see the stars and the world is still; broken only by the dark shapes of rooks returning to their nests I am so happy.
I do of course see the gleam of a setting sun on a building, or on a road or track and that is wonderful too but best of all is the shifting pattern of light around me when I am outside. The bruised yellow of clouds swollen with snow, the maze of twirling snowflakes above my head. The unwordly gleam of the sea when covered in fog with a hint of the blue sky above making everything bright on your eyes. The richness of green grass caught by a streak of light when the clouds in the distance are almost black in their density. The freshness of spring leaves in the trees on a day with the last of the frost now becoming a hidden memory.
This is my version of a church, my own stained glass; the seaweed, the sea smell mud smell; my own incense. If I had a faith though, I could also find peace in churches and places like that. There is something about the hush, about the fullness of an echo, the still ness, the high ceilings. I could return there to sit and maybe muse on nothing much at all but feelings some sense of peace. Just as, when I see the seals curling upwards on their rocks in the Firth, I am usually preoccupied with a conversation in my head but still feel a sense of joy.
The luxury of being able to pay scant attention to beauty in the knowledge that it will almost certainly be there tomorrow is incredible.
(Photo's Ardmore Jan 2022)
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