The sea is calm tonight. Ignorant armies clash but - and this is the point - not everywhere, not here.
I'll give you another 19th century poetic allusion. "Glory be to God for dappled things." It's true. Dappled things are a balm to the human soul.
It's well affter dark now but in this spot 10 hours ago, I was glorying in the dappled shade of a pair of palms and another fat-leaved tree that almost springs from the sea. The breeze blew in stiff from the water, cooling us at the edge of the strand, and the dappled shade soared back and forth at a hypnotizing rhythm.
Why does this dappled shade gladden the spirit so? For I've always found it so.
If I were sufficiently aesthetic, I'd be likely to owe it all to the pleasing play of light, to the altered perspectives of light and dark that enable us to see the familiar in a new -- well, light.
If I had a degree in sociobiology I'd be inclined to say that dappled shade provided protection and respite for our ancient ancestors, not to mention a comfortable, useful vantage point for hunting (and an early warning system for being hunted).
This sounds a little more plausible to me. The satisfaction and comfort of dappled shade are too profound to be explained mainly in aesthetic terms. I do think it's got everything to do with early memories that became built into us over the millennia. And memories that are more recent, in fact personal. I close my eyes and see the shade of the silver maple in my grandparents' side yard. I see the meticulously groomed back acre of my favorite house, the one I lived in for 12 years in Akron. No nostalgia or regret. A remembrance of pleasure past, of simple happiness, of unconditioned oneness.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
Comments