December 26, 2008

• This perfect moment.

  Christmas Day.

  I am standing by the ocean, watching as rows after rows of monstrous waves toss themselves upon the jagged rocks. The sea swells again like some angry prehistoric monster from the deep, with white breakers cresting on the top of a lurching ink-blue body. The wind is biting, and my ears are cold. For a moment, the rain falls sharply on the skin, driven sideways by the western wind. I wish I had brought the hood for my jacket, but it had long been left at home. We head back for the car.

  Another spot along the coast. It is a mere ten minutes later, but the rain has decided to stop its relentless pounding, and the wind has lost some of its furor. Still, drama fills the heavens, and to the left, the setting sun breaks through dark clouds. A golden orange spreads through the skies like some giant egg yolk cracked across an eternal canvas. My sisters and I splash through a small puddle of water and run down to the beach. To the right, a sandy hilltop of seagrass. In front, the waves still pound upon a shore scattered with driftwood. And all around, an infinitely wide expanse of sea and sky, meeting at a horizon with no end. It is a perfect moment, and I want to be here forever.

  Part of me wishes I have my camera with me. Yet another part of me knows that it is better this way, for even if I am to one day become ten times the photographer I am today, how can I possibly capture such a perfect moment in a single frame? Sometimes as a photographer, when I come upon a beautiful subject, a precious moment, my first instinct is to capture it so that I can share with others.

  Yet I am reminded of that scene in The Great Divorce, when a famous painter arrives in Heaven, and looking in amazement at the landscape around him, immediately wishes he had his brushes and paints with him. But what for? he is asked by a spirit. A painting is but a glimpse of the real thing, and while on earth, he was successful because he was able to help others see those glimpses too. But in heaven, he now had the real thing itself. Why would he put down on canvas what the others can already see and experience for themselves? He doesn’t quite understand.
  
  

  “How soon do you think I could begin painting?” [he] asked.
  
  The Spirit broke into laughter. “Don’t you see you’ll never paint at all if that’s what you’re thinking about?” he said.
  
  “What do you mean?” asked the Ghost.
  
  “Why, if you are interested in the country only for the sake of painting it, you’ll never learn to see the country. … Light itself was your first love: you loved paint only as a means of telling about light.”

  The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

  And so I stand on the sandy beach, with the wind blowing all around and the waves crashing upon the shore and the sun melting into the horizon, and breathe it all in. I am happy, content, and glad that I do not have my camera with me. For perhaps now, I have captured the moment far better than I could if I was experiencing it through a viewfinder.

  

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  • 3:31 am
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