Comment below:
**
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> Ah, the things one learns in life from the presence of -- or
> absence of -- light.
>
> I mean, here I was last night, sitting in my house, watching
> a classic French film called "La Belle Captive." It's a mystery,
> an homage by author/director Alain Robbe-Grillet to the works
> of Rene Magritte, and it's heavily laden with imagery. *Not*
> symbolism. Magritte didn't deal in symbols, clues to "solve"
> the mystery of life. He dealt instead with images, the things
> we perceive as archetypes, and which, when pursued, lead us
> only deeper into mystery. Magritte was a smart man.
>
> Anyway, I'm watching this film, in a room lit only with
> candles (to further deepen the sense of mystery), when I hear
> outside my open window the unmistakable sounds of a cheezy
> French cabaret band. For a moment it was a mystery. It could
> have come from the overly-amped-up sound system of a passing
> car, driven by a similarly overly-amped-up teenager with bad
> taste in music. But it was too loud. So that "solution" flew
> away as quickly as it appeared in my mind, leaving me to
> ponder the mystery further. So I did, finding no more success-
> ful "solution" to it than the first one.
>
> Finally, too curious to let the clue just pass without know-
> ing its "meaning," I pushed the record button on my Tivolike
> box and wandered outside. Only a few steps from my door, the
> mystery first deepened ("What are all these crowds doing out
> on the streets of my sleepy medieval village at 10:50 on a
> Friday night?") and then resolved itself into a solution as
> I remembered *which* Friday night it was. Le 13 juilliet, the
> day before le 14 juilliet, Bastille Day. Aha, said the detec-
> tive in me, putting the clues together to find a "solution"
> to the mystery -- it's one of those parties that the French
> government throws for its people every so often.
>
> I wandered further into the village, to find that the cheezy
> French cabaret band was playing live, on a bandstand erected
> in front of the Mairie, and that hundreds of people were
> standing around listening to them and dancing to the awful
> music. This reminded me of the sobering fact that some mys-
> teries are better left *as* mysteries, and that the magic that
> one perceived in them as long as one *considered* them a
> mystery tends to flee the moment one "solves" the mystery.
>
> So I'm standing there by the old 12-century city wall, watch-
> ing French girls move rhythmically to the music and French
> guys doing the white man's overbite, with all the rhythm of
> Americans, and then the current song ends, and the lights
> go out.
>
> All of them. Even the street lamps. The medieval village is
> suddenly plunged into a darkness it hasn't seen very often
> since the invention *of* street lamps. Another mystery.
>
> And then the fireworks start. Aha, says the detective in me,
> solving it almost immediately. I stand looking out at the
> river and watching les feux d'artifices climb into the sky
> and explode for a few moments, thinking back to the past,
> and how incredibly mind-boggling and awe-inspiring the sight
> of the first fireworks must have been for Europeans when
> they first found their way here from China. They explode and
> create momentary paintings of light in the sky, which in turn
> create momentary paintings of light and shadow on the walls
> of the medieval village.
>
> So I'm standing there with the crowds, eyes to the sky, drawn
> to the only light in town just as they are, when it hits me.
>
> The village is dark. They've turned off all the lights.
>
> And the mystery that I had "solved," and thus resolved into
> a convenient (and boring) solution reopened into a greater
> mystery, and the potential for great fun. I looked around at
> the crowds, at all the lovely women looking for love in (for
> once) all the right places (my village), and considered the
> possibility of hooking up with one of them. And then I con-
> sidered the alternative...turning my back on the crowds and
> *taking advantage* of the one night of the year I could see
> Sauve as it would have looked in the 12th century, in total
> darnkess, unlit even by torches.
>
> The decision took me less than a second. I left the crowds
> to focus on the play of light that they'd found in the sky,
> and I wandered off into the back streets of the village, to
> explore the play of light that one finds in darkness.
>
> It was really neat. The night was so dark that in some of
> the winding back alleys I had to walk along with my hand on
> one of the stone walls to find my Way. And then one of the
> skyrockets would explode, and illuminate the alley with
> artificial fire, for just a moment, just long enough to
> reveal the next alley, and the next mystery. One moment I
> would be standing alone under a stone archway in total
> darkness, and the next there would be a flash of light,
> and I would be joined by my own shadow on the cobblestone
> streets. I'd wave, and it would wave back, beckoning me
> deeper and deeper into mystery. It was really neat.
>
> Ah, the things one learns in life from the presence of -- or
> absence of -- light. Some people view life as a series of
> symbolic clues to follow so that they can "solve" the mystery
> of it all. Others just look on the clues as invitations to
> enjoy the mystery *as* mystery. Just predilection, I guess,
> but I'm sure glad that I wound up with mine.
>
**end**
Turq, excellent, thanks. Your story reminded me that there are some
folks who backpack or hike at nighttime and in the dark without
illumination or artifice. I've done it for only very short distances
but it's really amazing how well and how quickly you adapt to lowlight
conditions. And if you have anything of a moon, that provides an
extraordinary illumination.
It was pleasant to imagine an evening in Suave, wandering away from
the crowds and in the dark, on a private excursion.
In a similar vein and in the spirit of sharing: I just returned from a
surf session at one of the local breaks with the elected D.A. of the
county, a judge, and a pastor of one of the local churches; the D.A.
is in his mid-40s but everyone else is mid-50s. A couple of other
guys were surfing the same break, and they were both greybeards, too.
We got in the water around 7a when there was still quite a bit of fog;
but the sky was light and it was very cool to be walking into the
water, then paddling out in this glowing atmosphere and the sound of
surf, seagulls, and fog horn accompanying. Seals kept popping up to
check us out. The swell was small but the waves were glassy and
people caught a fair number.
It's a very laid back surfing scene here, long established and mellow.
The fog burned off as the morning came on and the sky flushed the most
exquisite blues as the sun continued to climb.
Just sitting on a surfboard, scanning the horizon for waves and
waiting for a good set to come through, rising and falling as a swell
passes beneath you, sunlight dancing and sparkling all around, birds
wheeling and diving everywhere, a bunch of old monkeys in wetsuits
(just like yourself) doing and marveling at exactly the same things
(no matter how long they've been surfing) -- for me, that fits in the
"mighty fine" experiences category.
Marek
