Step One: Write Something

I'm starting a blog... for the second time, the first effort was abandoned but hopefully this one will take. I'm not sure I can produce the number of words and assortments of thoughts that are necessary. I'm actually kind of muddleheaded about stuff like chronology and facts. We'll give it a try, anyway.

I take photos on the way to work. I'm going to post some here. I don't have a particularly visually striking commute, I love to see the way the sky changes and the way the pavement changes. Sometimes it's like a birthday present on a non-birthday. This evening on the way home, the sky was so beautiful it made me want to cry (admittedly, I was somewhat weepy for other reasons). The sun was on its way down, but still high enough to make a white blaze in a pale yellow field, fading into bruised-looking gray clouds. Despite the sun, there was a fine layer of gray haze, as if it was snowing just a little bit nearby. I didn't get a photo of it, but it made me think of Mark Rothko, whose biography I was reading just yesterday. He claimed his work was not about color, when most people think his work is about nothing BUT color. I'm not sure if Rothko ever did a pale yellow/gray over blue painting. He did work a lot with white paint mixed into colors. Usually I don't like white mixed into colors; I prefer to layer colors instead. If I was painting this sky, though, it would definitely be yellow mixed with white. I'm trying to think of what feeling the pale yellow conveyed, to me at least. I think it had to be comfort. The nearest concrete thing I can compare it to is a gender-neutral baby blanket, and you're a mother with a new baby and you're exhausted & drained & just want to sink your face into the yellow blanket.

This is not from the pale yellow sunset, this is a picture of the pearly sheen of the frozen harbor. This was this morning.