Writing Practice 7/5/2019 – Paint me a picture…
Paint me a picture of the sunset. Use red, and orange, and yellow, and sunflower, and orange-red, and burnt sienna, and pink, and pink-grey, and blend the colors together with the last few clouds of the day, and have them standing in stark contrast to the deepening blue of the sky, as the sun sinks lower, becomes larger, swells with its pride of having performed well for yet another day.
Streak the solid blue sky background with the white-blend-grey tops of clouds filling the vision, hanging there suspended as if on strings, or a scaffolding, fixed, waiting. Use the leftover melds of yellow-orange and orange-red and yellow-red-burnt sienna to color the undersides of the clouds, creating that stark contrast between day and night, below and above, the opposite of the way we normally think of the setup. Day is below the clouds, now, at sunset, as Sol has burned himself out once more, performed admirably yet again in bringing heat and power to the world, as she has given of herself to the surface, has divested herself of all that stored potential energy she has, and, instead of keeping it for herself, instead of maintaining herself on it, instead of restraint and inhibition, she has blessed us, with abundance, with abandon, and in so doing she has exhausted herself, like the fat sturgeon fighting the currents to get to her nesting station, as she has deposited her brood in their rightful place, as she, then exhausted, collapses under the weight of the biological urges within her, and dies, to drift back downstream in renewal and in anticipation, in foreshadowing the life of her offspring yet to come. She is the embodiment of self-sacrifice, of service, of giving of oneself for another, and we see the parallel in the sun in the way that she, too, like that mother full of futures, has been filled with our futures, our possibilities of the day, and she, in her infinite patience, has disgorged herself for us. Has given us of her energy, her power, her life-blood, so that we may live, and breath, and drive, and fuck, and we repay not but what we ineffectively, insufficiency, proclaim of her beauty when we write an essay such as this, when we paint a picture such as that, when we sing her praises, insufficiency, inadequately, imperfectly, yet, we still do, we say thank you, we appreciate all you do for us, we spend our time as we rest in the evening with gratitude on our lips and in our hearts and in our notebooks, and we, then, refill ourselves, even as Sol has gone away to fill herself one more, to drink of the eternal spring of Natural Refreshment, to be the way of renewal, to capture and store up, for us, to build up a huge, vibrant, dynamic reservoir of power, and warmth, and inspiration, that she, in her infinite patience and goodness and mercy, will, with the coming of the dawn, once again choose to bless us.
Stephan Writes 