my camera roll is full of the sky
we need to write more about how light transforms all around it
My camera roll is full of the sky. Embers, candy floss, neon signs. The moon shedding light between the stars and the streetlights.
My reading notebook is also full of the sky. The summer sun as the soundtrack to twenty-something sloppiness, the moon’s glassy eye as the backdrop to yearning.
Life becomes full of meaning the moment golden hour brushes against the bookshelves in the bedroom. Or when the flame from the bar’s tealight distorts itself in a pair of wine glasses.
Light is everywhere. Its presence and absence curate and share our most tender moments; the memories and moods that have made us.
I love books that recognise light as a vital supporting actor, a co-star in our stories. So here are some of my favourite literary quotes on light; always a bridesmaid now the bride.
“Beauty was on them, beauty revealed them. Was it the light that did it? - the tender, the fading, the uninquisitive but searching light of the evening that reveals depths in water and even makes the red brick bungalow radiant.”
“I looked out over the beautiful expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight until it was almost as light as day. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys and gorges of velvety blackness. The mere beauty seemed to cheer me; there was peace and comfort in every breath I drew.”
"The four a.m. streets looked shabby and filthy. The shadow of decay and disintegration lurked everywhere, and I was part of it. Like a shadow burned into a wall."
…
"Sometimes when I look at you, I feel I'm gazing at a distant star," I said. "It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist any more. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything."
"The library was like a tomb, illuminated from within by a chill fluorescent light that, by contrast, made the afternoon seem colder and greyer than it was. The windows of the reading room were bright and blank; bookshelves, empty carrels, not a soul."
…
"Snow was falling in earnest now - big silent petals drifting through the springtime woods, white bouquets segueing into the snowy dark: a nightmarish topsy-turvy land, something from a storybook. My path took me beneath a row of apple trees, full-blown and luminous, shivering in the twilight like an avenue of pale umbrellas. The big white flakes wafted through them, dreamy and soft."
…
"Outside, it was cool and still, the sky that hazy shade of white peculiar to autumn mornings, and the wicker chairs were drenched with dew. The hedges and the acres of lawn were covered in a network of spider webs that caught the dew in beads so that it glistened white as frost. Preparing for their journey south, the martins flapped and fretted in the eaves, and, from the blanket of mist hovering over the lake, I heard the harsh lonely cry of the mallards."
…
"The sun was low, burning gold through the trees, casting our shadows before us on the ground, long and distorted. We walked for a long time without saying anything. The air was musty with far-off bonfires, sharp with the edge of a twilight chill."
"A blue sky is shedding rain. Some things she will never understand. Why is the winter sun whiter than July's? Why hadn't the girl's father ever written?"
"I turned my palms upward in the sunlight. In an instant, they felt warm, as though the light were seeping into the skin, soaking into the very lines of my fingerprints. The light ruled over everything out here. Bathed in light, each object glowed with the brilliant colour of summer. Even intangibles such as time and memory shared the goodness of the summer light. I popped a lemon drop in my mouth and went on sitting there until it had melted away."
…
"The sharp sunshine of early summer dappled the surface of the alley with the hard shadows of the branches that stretched overhead. Without wind to move the branches, the shadows looked like permanent stains, destined to remain imprinted on the pavement forever. No sounds of any kind seemed to penetrate this place. I could almost hear the blades of grass breathing in the sunlight. A few small clouds floated in the sky, their shapes clear and precise, like the clouds in medieval engravings. I saw everything with such terrific clarity that my own body felt vague and boundless and flowing.”
…
"In one instant, the horizon became a faint line suspended in the darkness, and then the line was drawn upward, higher and higher. It was as if a giant hand had stretched down from the sky and slowly lifted the curtain of night from the face of the earth. It was a magnificent sight, far greater in scale, as I said earlier, than anything that I, with my limited human faculties, could comprehend. As I sat and watched, the feeling overtook me that my very life was slowly dwindling into nothingness. There was no trace here of anything as insignificant as human undertakings. This same event had been occurring hundreds of millions - hundreds of billions of times, from an age long before there had been anything resembling life on earth. Forgetting that I was there to stand guard, I watched the dawning of the day, entranced."
"There's no solace in the shade. Let yourself be heard and hear her words. Have faith. Suck at the snake's bite, spit out the venom at your feet. Gaze at the fading scar but do not dwell. Do not hide but do not dwell... There's no solace in the shade. Let yourself be heard and hear her words. Have faith."
…
"She'd like to return to a memory of the present: you're both sitting on the hill in the park. It's been a year and your face is unchanged. Golden hour has come and gone, blue hour in its place, swathing you both in the soft hue of possibility. She begins to shiver and you offer your jacket, draping it over her shoulders. You're both enjoying the comfort of each other's silence. What more is there to say?"