A NIGHT WALK

 

Flashlight and I along Hapenny Road_Peacham Vermont

Dearest Readers,

I took a walk alone a couple nights ago, down the dirt road that skirts a forest near my home and studio above Peacham Vermont. It was both frightening and awesome. Existential is the word. The cooling air was thick with silence. No cars in earshot and no street lamps to wash out the night sky.  A pair of bats dipped and dived over my head. A hooting owl sounded deep in the woods, and a heavy, unseen creature crashed through the brush somewhere on my right. Lightening bugs flickered among the trees. The blackening landscape rose up through the dying light of dusk as the last bit of daylight leached out of the sky. I felt small and alone. Thoughts of death and danger lurking in the shadows consumed me. My hearing became acute as visibility dwindled.

Night for me holds an unseen force. Last summer here I painted what this felt like-primal, dark, powerful.

Night Wings_42"x36"_acrylic on canvas_2013

 I still keep a nightlight on at home to give definition to the boundaries of my space–to let me know I am alive and grounded. I would like to be more brave.

I took iphone pictures in successive stages of dwindling light, until the camera refused to recognize the emerging stars, and I needed a flashlight on the road.

1.Dusk remains above the trees

2.Walk begins as light fades

3. Edge of the forest_trees turn into black blobs

4. Night quickly falls along the road

5.Almost complete darkness between trees and sky

6. Last light between the trees that the camera can register

I quickly lost my courage, and turned back toward home. I had not gone very far. Later I sat in a plastic lawn chair in the blackness of the yard, and gazed up at the expanse of constellations. I will test my self again another night.

Half moon at 2AM Peacham VT