Phosphorescence

09 Sep Phosphorescence

I started a new painting yesterday.  I was having a lot of fun with the colours.  Unfortunately I had to leave it in the height of ugliness, but I have high hopes that it has good bones and it’s headed somewhere good.  I’ll keep you posted.

Last night I went down to the beach at dusk and as it got darker could see that there was (were?) phosphorescence lighting up in the water when I ran my hands through it.  I love those things.  I hadn’t seen them yet this summer so was thrilled.  As it got darker and there were more and more visible I was hooked.  They’re tiny little organisms in the water that light up when there’s movement around them.  Like teensy teensy fireflies in the water I guess, although I’ve never seen fireflies.  (But I’d really like to.)  I spent a good hour or so, in darkness now, running my hands through the water and stomping my feet so that flashes of light erupted from beneath them.  I felt like a goddess, making lightning come out of me.  My eldest and a friend were with me and it became apparent that we had to get into that water!  It wasn’t a good spot to get in right there so, thank goodness for flashlight apps on cellphones, we walked over to the regular beach, and my biggest and I stripped down to underwear and ran in.  The water had been absolutely and brutally freezing cold earlier in the day, numbness creeping in even just standing in the water, but for some reason it was much better now.  So much better.  Maybe the excitement helped.

Diving forward and swimming with my face in the water, eyes open, there were so many flashes around me that it was like swimming into a light show, but blurry.  The very very best was swimming with my head out of the water and watching my hands and arms move through the water and all of the crystal clear hundreds, thousands of glowing lights flow around me.  Impossible to properly describe.  It’s the closest I ever feel to living in magic.  Fairyland.  My son tried to take a video but it wouldn’t show, and we agreed that it’s actually pretty cool that you have to just enjoy it with your eyes.  As my legs moved beneath the water they were lit up.  I lay back and made a water angel.  My eldest found a big rock for me to swim out (A really huge rock.  Could he be trying to get rid of me??) and I lugged it out to deep water and dropped it.  You could see its trail as it traveled down to the bottom.  And even though it was dark and it’s September we weren’t (very) cold.  I’d brought down a blanket to sit on or wrap around me when I thought I was just going to be sitting in the dusk so it became our towel, but really we were ok.  I kept getting out and then wandering back in.  It was just so hard to resist playing with the water, splashing it, stomping, throwing it so that it lit up,  just running fingers through it again and again.  Even the sand had flecks glowing here and there.

Eventually we knew we had better wrap it up since there’s no way we weren’t going to start shivering at some point.  We wandered through the dark up the trail to the car and I was thrilled both to have gotten in a night swim (I thought I’d missed my opportunity this year, and you can’t plan those.  They have to just evolve.) and to be sneaking to my car in my underwear and a blanket!  Honestly, little adventures like that make me feel about 20 years younger.

In the night I woke up to the smell of smoke, not a good feeling when I live on the edge of a dry forest.  Eventually I got back to sleep but this morning there was fall in the air, a brisk wind, big dark clouds promising rain, and news of this.  

Spent some time watching a helicopter ferry water up to drop on it.  Hopefully it will be fine.  A little too close.

I think it’s a day for comfort food (hello, homemade macaroni and cheese),  laundry (sigh), painting ( I hope) and the acceptance that fall has arrived.  Time to sweep the sand up off my floor.