The Approach of the Approach of Splendor

We recently spent the better part of a week over on Maui.  Some highlights of the trip are a bit on-the-nose, like sunrise at the summit of a dormant volcano, or a lovely day spent lounging by the tranquil resort pool with smoothie service.  But my favorite moments of just about any trip are usually completely off the radar of anyone else.  Like the afternoon I spent roaming a Prague cemetery and took some of my most favorite photos.  You get some odd looks when you describe that your favorite moment of a four-country European vacation was a solitary sojurn, filled with ivy-covered gravestones.  

We took a hike to a spectacular waterfall, Pipwai Falls, way out in East Maui past Hana in the Kipahulu district of Haleakalā National Park.  A place that is simultaneously remote and yet well-touristed.  The hike was a 6-mile out-and-back along a stream we had to ford at one point, culminating at a small clearing surrounded on three sides by soaring vertical rock walls and a 400-foot-tall water cascade.  Stunning.  But it wasn't my favorite part of the hike, by far.  

No, it was this boardwalk section through a bamboo forest.  Anyone who knows me knows how much I love light.  A deeper metaphor, yes, but the photographer in me enjoys the changing nature of light, the play of light with objects, the qualities it possesses from one time and space to another.  It is fleeting and it is lovely and it is holy.  Anyhow, we stepped from jungly streamside forest into this other world.  The light filtering through the leafy canopy into the tall bamboo shafts.  The sound they made as the wind sifted through them - the largest bamboo wind chime on earth.  I lagged back from the group just to linger a while in it, to listen and to simply be.  I must have looked ridiculous, completely overjoyed to walk through a patch of overgrown grass, which wasn't even the hike's destination.

From Frederick Buechner's The Alphabet of Grace:

Two apple branches struck against each other with the limber clack of wood on wood.  That was all - a tick-tack rattle of branches - but then a fierce lurch of excitement at what was only daybreak, only the smell of summer coming, only starting back again for home, but oh Jesus, he thought, with a great lump is his throat and a crazy grin, it was an agony of gladness and beauty falling wild and soft like rain.  Just clack-clack, but praise him, he thought. Praise him.  Maybe all his journeying, he thought, had been only to bring him here to hear two branches hit each other twice like that, to see nothing cross the threshold but to see the threshold, to hear the dry clack-clack of the world's tongue at the approach of the approach of splendor.

And because the augenblick will not verweile, the return trip through the bamboo was completely different.  One, it was no longer a delightful surprise - it was now a known entity, the joy of discovery was finished.  Two, an hour later after a pause at the falls, and of course the light's angles had changed.  Others may keep their waterfall; I, however, will carry that bamboo around with me forever.  Clack clack.

The Scent of Trees

This morning, on the way to school, I was singing in my car - as I do, loudly - when I drove through the orange groves on either side of the road. The scent of springtime orange blossoms is enough for you to stop your car in the street, but all I did was stop mid-verse to breathe in. Later, on the way home, passing the trees again, the stirred-up atmosphere made for more fleeting fragrance - far less intense than the heavy velvet of scent hanging in the still and dark air. But just enough of a flirtation to remind you of its presence. However long it lasts each year.

I am reasonably certain heaven must smell like an orange grove in blossom on a warm spring evening.

Or else like a eucalyptus grove.

The scent of central-coast eucalyptus was even more pervasive, in that it is fragrant year-round, not just for a season. Always present. The cool, humid air forever thick with it. It reminds you where you are. It reminds you of where you used to be.

Peace of Wild Things

The Peace of Wild Things

Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water,

and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

No Audience

...the world requires no audience, no witnesses...

(Conor Oberst, I Must Belong Somewhere)

At sundown, I often think it strange that the waves continue crashing, the mountains keep on standing, even after they dissolve into inky black. All the beauty on earth is routinely hidden.

The mere fact that I can't see it doesn't keep it from happening. Which immediately feels extraordinarily self-absorbed; I know that these things don't exist exclusively for my pleasure. (Sure, they do, to some extent.^{1 ,2})

Hearing the ocean - but not seeing it - always reminds me of my size in the universe. And the beauty in the promise of a sunrise.

Ah, Spring

We're on spring break, and we've had shockingly beautiful weather, real chamber-of-commerce kinds of days. And perhaps it's a bit ungrateful for me to say that I am not quite ready for summer. I'm reluctant to give up my wool and my turtlenecks, even though we have had a decent run of winter. But I'm not quite ready for the summer pattern just yet. That said, we've had a string of days lately that start out pleasantly cool but quickly climb into the 80s under clear skies.

A friend and I spent a lovely day out in town yesterday, at Leu Gardens for a portion of it. The garden admission is waived on Mondays before noon, so it was crowded with retirees, mothers with strollers, and an army of SLR-bearing photographers. Not that we weren't part of it...

Tree Frog

I took a picture of this frog on our bathroom window two months ago. It seems a nice accompaniment to Jess's post. I didn't name it. Maybe I should.

Sunflowers

Shoulder to shoulder,

preened and ready,

necks craned for

their first glimpse.

Suffocating clouds.

Delayed arrival.

Love's threadbare clothing

goes unnoticed.

Could they ever think

he might not come

to court again

tomorrow?

Sunset

Tonight's sunset was beyond stunning! Like, stop-everything-leave-the-food-cooking-on-the-stove-and-go-outside-and-gawk beautiful.

Sunflowers

Some sunflowers worth pulling off to the side of the road.
A month or two ago. Early evening light.
Nikon d50 SLR. Varying shutter speeds.

Sunrises and Citrus

The sunrise was beautiful this morning. I mean, how could a sunrise not be beautiful, right?

Over the past few years, I have cultivated an appreciation for sunrise. I used to think of sunrise as merely the opposite of a sunset, and sunsets don't require getting up early. But anymore, there's something special about watching the ink from the night sky get washed away, giving way to orange and pink splashed across the sky. And sunrises and sunsets are spectacular in central Florida - a delightful bonus of relocation from California. By virtue of my commute, I get the privilege of witnessing the sunrise almost every morning, except for summer and a few weeks surrounding daylight-savings changes. Today's sunrise was more vibrant than most. Enhanced by mid-level clouds, the orange in the east was like fire. It was short-lived, as many beautiful things are, without the flickers of pink that linger on higher clouds. There's much to being present for the dawn. As much as I enjoy sleeping in, too much makes me feel wasteful. Besides, how could you not be seduced by sunrise when you have a camera in your hand? Sunrise shots like this make the early alarm, jet lag battle, and pre-dawn driving escapades worthwhile.

In other news, I squeezed the most fantastic orange juice this weekend. Normally, freshly-squeezed juice is just thin, watery, and anemic. I pass a citrus stand ("Honor System - put your money in the box") twice a day on my drive to and from school. Friday, after a discussion of the merits of locally-grown produce, the stand proffered four large bags of tangelos. I stuffed my bills into the box and brought one home. The next morning, I thought I'd section a few, but my cutting was met with a deluge of juice. So, I put down the knife and reached instead for the reamer. Man oh man. This stuff was rich, full-bodied, incredible.

VolcanoCam

The Pu'u 'O'o crater of Kilauea volcano is currently host to a lava lake. The webcam shows some really sweet images at night (subtract 6h from EDT to get local time), since there hasn't been much fume in the way lately.

The best images are before noon EDT, specifically 1100a - 1200n EDT, when you can see the geography *and* the glow of the lava.