1. a summer sunset while driving out of the desert mountains overlooking Bakersfield in the distance. Brittany and I were on a roadtrip from Texas to Utah with a little detour to Granite Bay, CA. As we started to reach the top of the last mountain we noticed that the sun was beginning to set but not in any way either of us had ever seen before. As we began our descent we witnessed THE most spectacular display of pink, rose, magenta, fuscia, lilac, violet, and deep purple that I've ever seen in my life. Each time, just when we thought it couldn't get any better it did. The sunset seemed to play out every spectrum of pinks and purples imaginable. And because we were at a place where almost all we saw was sky, it was as if the entire world was aglow in royal colors. So many sunsets include various hues of red. But I don't remember any red in this one.
2. a circular flyover above Paris before landing on an early Sunday morning. I think it was about 7:30 am and I was flying from Munich to Houston with a plane change at Charles deGaulle Airport. The pilot, I believe routinely just for the sheer pleasure of all the passengers, made a sweeping circle above the city so we could experience la vie en rose from the air, but as I looked down from my airplane window I was awestruck that everything I saw was Gold! The buildings, the river, the parks, and especially, La Tour Eiffel, were radiating gold from the bottom to the top. It was just one of those very magical moments in time when the morning sunlight was so perfect as it lit up the City of Lights. This image was so emblazened in my mind that I can see it now just as beautifully as I did then, and I don't even have to close my eyes to see it. It's a place I go to often in my mind when I want to get away, even for just un petit moment.
3. a sea of grass while exiting the Grapevine from LA heading north up I-5. When I drove to Northern California the last Saturday afternoon in February the day was dark, dreary and cold. The Grapevine itself was draped in heavy storm clouds and I drove through periodic torrential rainstorms. As I descended the Grapevine I could see white snowy mountaintops to my right and sun in the future, albeit the time was going on 5:30 so the sun was beginning to set in the west. However, what I couldn't quite comprehend at first was what appeared to be a sea or lake on both sides of the freeway at the bottom of the hill. I kept thinking, "What's this? When did I ever drive across a lake here before?" My mind couldn't make sense of what my eyes were seeing. There before me was the most incredible expanse of a color I'd never seen before...it was blue, it was green, it was emerald, it was turquoise, it was seagreen, it was all those colors mixed up together and painted across the flat landscape. I kept looking off to the mountain range on the right to try to correct my eyesight, and then I'd see this amazing color sweep up the side of the mountain. As I got closer and closer the color settled back in to a more traditional Spring Green for the crops that were growing there. But for at least 5-10 minutes I saw the most beautiful blue-green I've ever seen. You know how when you get pure inspiration but you can't always put it into words. That's what the color was like. Indescribable.
4. Six rainbows while returning from this very same roadtrip last week heading back south on the I-5. Just when I thought I'd never see the above mentioned color again our Creator had another explosive colorfest in store for me. This time, someplace south of Patterson, between 5-5:30pm as the rain clouds were wrapping up and the sun was trying to shine through, as some of the clouds were gray and some were pure white, as the setting sun was fast approaching the lush green hillside and preparing to tuck itself behind them, I saw six rainbows. Huge massive arcs in the sky. They didn't just sort of show one side or the other, they didn't just sort of dance around a bit and then tease me by hiding, they were brilliantly stretched out across the California central valley, one after the other after the other, like an amazing fireworks display of rainbows. One reached up so high into the sky that as it peaked amidst the blue atmsophere it was as though it was saying, "Look here, Joyce, above the rain and gray and dismal day, there's sun and light and hope!" These clouds didn't just have silver linings. They were lined in prisms. Glorious prisms. And then I saw what I thought I'd never see again. Somewhere on the blue spectrum of the rainbow, before the purple, and after the green, was the amazing color of the imagined sea I'd witnessed as mentioned above in number 3. The next time you see a rainbow look for that color on the blue band. That's pretty close to what I'm talking about.
ps. As a fun little treat and an added surprise, by the time I started down the other side of the Grapevine it was 8:00 pm and inky dark when a huge lustrous full moon darted out from behind some clouds, just long enough to wink and smile at me, and then slipped back into his hiding place.
2 comments:
Wow. Those were such AMAZING descriptions! That was almost BETTER than pictures!!
Lynette, what kind of new camera did you get?
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