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The lights were out in the Metro subway car going home from school.
It's odd. It's easy, in the twentieth-century suburban America in which I dwell, to spend all day under fluorescent lights, with fans and air conditioning, surfing the Internet and reading books, and the Metro – except for the platforms – is normally the same. But just that small change rendered that passage into a gripping abstract drama. The train departs in the glowing light of the afternoon, and sweeps through the suburban greenbelt before plunging into the hillside. The sudden darkness awakens you, and you watch as the regular lights of the tunnel flash by. The sunlight blossoms out on you as you sweep out of the tunnel, and retracts as you return to the earth.
There is something peculiar about the quality of light, some days, some places. Sunsets, with their panoplies of color, are interesting enough, but I've always found the contrast of bright and dark far more vibrant. Objects become pieces, and you're forced to create them for yourself, from the few fragments that light lends existence.
It's odd. It's easy, in the twentieth-century suburban America in which I dwell, to spend all day under fluorescent lights, with fans and air conditioning, surfing the Internet and reading books, and the Metro – except for the platforms – is normally the same. But just that small change rendered that passage into a gripping abstract drama. The train departs in the glowing light of the afternoon, and sweeps through the suburban greenbelt before plunging into the hillside. The sudden darkness awakens you, and you watch as the regular lights of the tunnel flash by. The sunlight blossoms out on you as you sweep out of the tunnel, and retracts as you return to the earth.
There is something peculiar about the quality of light, some days, some places. Sunsets, with their panoplies of color, are interesting enough, but I've always found the contrast of bright and dark far more vibrant. Objects become pieces, and you're forced to create them for yourself, from the few fragments that light lends existence.
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