Is It Still Possible To See The World?

We might have to stop staring and start looking. Observations from the window after pulling the curtains open.

watercolour painting of a pink cotton-candy cloud against a pale blue sky crossed by the trail of a passing airplane — by DALL·E

I was staring at the proverbial blank page when the light beckoned me. I am fortunate to have a large window behind my desk, which makes the golden hour hard to miss. Naturally, one can get used to what would be extraordinary otherwise and overlook the casual grandeur of dusk. Thankfully, the sky had a different plan, and the mixture of pale pink, blue and white found a hole through the curtains and enticed me to look up.

Candy Floss Clouds

I drew the curtain and held my breath for a couple of seconds. A gargantuan candy floss floated behind a nearby building as though it had always been there, showing no intention to move. The oneiric pink reminded me of a time I can hardly recollect. It is of those moments that perdures in the lawless region of memory populated by the unconnected events of early childhood. Some of these blurry flashes show my dad taking me (my brother hadn’t been born yet, which makes me under five years of age) on a car ride to catch the sunset. Often, he would film or photograph some of these sunsets, giving ‘catch’ a more literal meaning. Since this happened long before the advent of the smartphone, the process required more…