What's the difference? The difference is being open and willing to become engaged by what you are looking at it. Most of the time, we look but don't see. Last night, coming home on the train, I saw. It just lasted a moment, but I saw. I'll try to describe what I saw.
I was on the train. We had passed over the bridge going from Manhattan to the Bronx and were entering this little canyon where the tracks are depressed and the walls on either side are high. I happened to look up out of the window for a moment and I saw a building, all alone, with nothing else around it. It was silhouetted against the sky. It was brick painted a tan or beige color, probably about 8 stories high, maybe 10. It was at an angle to me so that I was looking at its corner. And it was set against the sky, all alone. The sky was like thirty different shades of blue, streaked by some small clouds floating here and there. All of those shades of blue melded together into a blue that was achingly perfect and made more perfect by the small imperfections of the clouds. And this building thrust itself up against this perfect sky and looked, maybe because of the position of the angle or because of the juxtaposition of the three basic colors, two dimensional. It was like a painting.
The train moved on and it was evanescent. I think I gasped quietly at the perfection of that moment. I hope I conveyed it here.
Posted by Random Penseur at June 24, 2004 07:55 AM