16 or 17 years: After many hours around the campfire we set off down the lush summertime sandstone valley on the tracks, quiet and happy. Gradually light creeps into the canyon and I wake up as if into a soft dream..
18 years: Standing on the patio in the pale dawn light, Fisherman and I hear a thump on the driveway. It startles us both and we look at each other for a moment and I don’t now remember which of us realizes it first, maybe simultaneously, that it is the Sunday newspaper…
Also 18 years, train tracks again: Fourth of July weekend, a friend is departing for an Arctic canoe trip. We wander the county all night and end up on the tracks that run along his property line, sitting on the rails, throwing rocks, talking quietly as the dawn demands…
20 years: The sun rises in pink and purple over the far shore of a lake in Wisconsin. She and I sit on the wooden planks at the end of the dock and watch the lake and sky drip color. When it is again more blue than anything else, we go in and sleep past noon…
22 and 26 years: I-90 en route to Bozeman. Preferred, proven strategy of leaving Minnesota in the evening, driving the night through, then the sun coming up behind and the mountains ahead…
25 years: An unending nocturnal game of bocce ball on a lake in northern Wisconsin, plodding laps around the cabin, the lake gradually revealed in shades of gray, hues of red. After, in the first hour of light, we cast crankbaints off the dock and land the only two walleye of the weekend in the span of 15 minutes…
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8 Comments
Really cool! I enjoyed this. What will 28and 30 years be?
Brilliant!
Thanks to both of you for commenting. What I didn’t include because I couldn’t figure out how to describe it is that particular euphoria that comes from staying up all night. I hope that even without explicitly writing about it, it filtered through in the vignettes.
Cheers.
You’re right there is an euphoria both mentally and visually of watching the light touch the earth again. During graduate school I remember pausing for a few moments and watching many sunrises following a frantic night of work. I also remember ski trips I’d take in college where we’d drive through the night just to approach Denver at first light to see the sun light up the front range to vibrant pinks and oranges.
Thanks,
Eric
25 years:
“Northern Lights”
eric - it’s funny how those memories and images stay with you, isn’t it? thanks for the comment.
scott - ah, yes, “northern lights.” if you had been awake, you would have known how strange a phenomena it was.
Wonderful stuff, kid. I like the use of just the edge of the experiences here set within so many photos that themselves tell a story but can never tell the full story.The experience of being outdoors is never complete so must be revisited. Good.Just returned from my second consecutive cabin weekend. The quiet, the water, the woods–wonderful. No tv. No radio. Just time together, lots of laughter, lots of pausing, and a great book.-cK
cK - thanks for stopping by and commenting, I’m glad you enjoyed the piece. I actually struggled a bit with this, mostly trying to remember the times I’ve stayed up to see the sun rise.
but then it didn’t feel quite “whole” and I fought with it a bit more and ultimately decided to go less-is-more and trimmed a bunch of the fat… hope that it works with the brief text and the pics. sounds like a lovely cabin weekend, I really need to get one of those in very soon.