Pastel Layers

I'm going to write about the weather. Bare with me.

Saturday's rehearsal for the Olympia Symphony was at its regular time, 3 o'clock, with a break at 4:15 – or rather, a break slated for 4:15. Huw missed the mark by fifteen minutes, stopping rehearsal at 4:30. It was good timing.

Sunset in Oly hits at about 4:30 now. I decided to head outside and enjoy it; I was alone, but that was ok. The CHS parking lot was empty, and the only people out were on the track half a football field away from me. There weren't any cars there, those were off in the lot closer to the road. I got to park myself in the middle of a block of spaces.

The people-watching was good at the track. There was a guy in his thirties hauling around at a brisk race pace – I'd call it a two-mile pace. He stopped running before the "Final Stretch" part of the track, the part for which I didn't know the proper way to run (read: NOW the full-force sprint); he walked forward with hands on hips, a pose I found felt good for the lungs until letting the arms down and suddenly finding my chest muscles were being heavily assisted by the arms doing most of the breathing-expansion work for me.

He made me think of track because it was a lightly-nipping cold out. Olympia's going through a stagnated-air weather system right now, where nothing happens - quite literally. No wind's going through. We aren't supposed to have fire-log fires now, because all our fumes are heading nowhere fast.

As fascinating as this may sound, there was one wonderful side-effect I got while reminiscing of times when my legs burned with happiness (and minimally-flaming pain). Still air left a lot of room for mist to rise, with the bittersweet temperatures blurring the floor/ceiling between fog and cloud. At ground level, at Capital, there wasn't any, but o'er the field was a site to see.

There are forested hills if you're in that parking lot, looking at and past the football field. There are a couple layers to these hills, denser as the view advances in the distance. The fog was rising from all these hills, creating what would have been run-of-the-mill grayshades like this:

Ah, but the beauty of this was the time of day. 4:30; Sunset. This was the first day of the stagnated weather (that stretched up to Bellingham), so clouds hadn't had much of a chance to form, and if they did, they formed lightly. Three shades of pink fleshed into orange colored the three layers of trees in my vision, with the sky taking its own straightly orange tint. This was gorgeous in and of itself.

And then a bird flew in.

I'd read a little on design, and it touched on general art. What little I know of art was summed up in half by that bird: A solitary pair of wings was a deep spot in the scene. More importantly than it being there was that it was there alone (the runner had gone behind the trees that covered half the field from my vantage point). That single bird, flying high enough to make its speed an amble, was a character for the beholder to relate to — one entity for the viewer to personally project — an observer for the observer.

And I rued not bringing my camera.

That rehearsal break was my little Zen for the weekend. The Symphony concert the next night wasn't as fulfilling as October's, because I had already played all three of the Big Orchestra pieces this time around (Die Meistersinger, Carmen Suite 1, and William Tell). The pieces were all still exciting, to be sure; the singer we had was a terrific soprano; and the house sold out again (huzzah!), contrary to the history of November's concert not selling well (Thanksgiving proximity).

I was just slightly dampened for the concert because I had gone back to Capital at 4:20, thinking I'd get another shot at the sunset scene. What I didn't account for was the clouds had now had a day to collect, and they were out in full blotting force. The picture above was the cream of that shoot's crop.

I'm glad after the fact, though. My eye's out now, casting about for a sunset not just for the sake of a sunset, but for the possibility of an avian lacing.