I'm walking in nearly complete darkness, only able to navigate thanks to my head lamp. As I come around a bend in the road, there's a gap in line of trees along the right hand side, their black silhouettes dropping away to reveal the view. This is what I had been hoping to find when I ventured out of camp, so stop and turn off the light. In front of me lies the valley, almost not recognizable compared with its daytime self. The night sky, almost but not completely black, is studded with stars. The dark outline of a low hill in the middle distance; spots of light scattered sparsely across it, each little cluster signifying a farmhouse. Behind it, the orange glow of a town. At this distance you can't make out any shapes - it's barely visible in the daylight- but the light radiating skywards marks its location like a beacon. There are thousands of pinpricks of brightness within that diffuse radiance; each one denoting a single streetlight, a single lighted window, or the headlights of car. I don't know if it's an illusion, but from where I'm standing, they seem to be twinkling like distant fireflies. It's funny when you come to think of it, you come out here to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, but once you're up here, looking down at the city lights from the stillness of the mountain, it's actually quite beautiful.
This beach is unusually steep. I’m standing at the bottom of the hill, right where the coarse black sand meets the ocean; if I turn my head I can barely see over the crest. In the distance to my right, a cliff rises abruptly out of the sand, and off to my left the beach narrows to a point where the dark green hills come crawling down to the water. The slow swell of the Pacific gets bunched up against the steeply rising ground, and as it does a turquoise grey wall of water rises up in front of me. … Read the rest
The rain is drumming on the parasol and the wind blowing through the trees is unusually cold for the season. The lake, just down the slope in front of me, lies flat and gray like a piece of slate, reflecting the dismal sky. The embers in the barbecue glow red, heating me up just enough to keep standing here. The summer shouldn't be cold and wet like this but the sun is conspicuous by its absence. Two steps to the side I would be miserable yet here, in this little pocket of dry warmth, it's strangely cozy; like sitting inside watching the rain through the window but somehow more acute. All I lack now is the typical barbecue beer...perhaps exchanged for a cup of hot chocolate.
The rain is beating down so hard the noise drowns out all other sound. Down below preparations are going on for opening the market just like every morning; trucks of all sizes coming and going, boxes of fruit and vegetables being loaded or offloaded, and men shouting to each other over the droning of engines. Normally the sounds from all this would float up to me where I stand but this night they don't, nothing but the whoosh of the water. On a clear night you could see far from here, the lights of apartments on the other side of the city and the faint outline of distant mountains against the pre dawn sky, but tonight the pouring rain obscures everything, making the world seem small. It's like being in a silent bubble, surrounded by a curtain of water.
© 2025 Renegade Writings — Powered by WordPress
Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑