I can't sleep…
“Nothing astounding, but everything beautiful.” (Jonathan Buckley, One Boat).
First major snowfall. 5:00 to 5:30 am. 32° F. Heavy snow. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Don’t miss other shots from this morning’s walk here.
WAIT FOR IT! Time Lapse Video from Twilight to Sunrise. 1 hour in 22 seconds, 6:20 am to 7:20 am. 23° F, feels like 16° F. Cove Island Park, Stamford, CT.
Don’t miss the photos from this morning’s walk here.
Sitting on that height, facing the brightening light, this is what I understood, not as a proposition of words, but as if it had taken full occupancy of my mind in a moment, as an image might occupy it, or a mathematical proof. Afterwards, when I translated what I had experienced, what I wrote had none of the force of what had happened. A long life and a short life are the same, because the present is the only life we have – the same for everyone. It was like a description of music. As the light poured into my eyes, exciting their nerves, causing reactions in the brain, the reactions gave rise to something beyond any contentment – a submission, blissful. The moment of the present becomes instantly the past, I wrote. The present was almost-nothing; I was almost-nothing – a momentary arrangement of energy. And when the time came for the arrangement of energy that went by my name to collapse, and become a different arrangement, barely anything would be changed. A slight readjustment of a few lives, for a while. Some after-life in the memory of a small number of people, for some of whom I was already nothing but a memory. Into the great indifference, I wrote, but the words caused a chill, a shiver, which I had not experienced in those minutes at the ruins. Everything is becoming – nothing rests, I added, on the next line. A less discomfiting formulation. At the ruins, I witnessed transition in everything: the slow movement of the clouds, the slower rising of the sun, the agitation of the sea. I witnessed it and felt it: with each breath, each heartbeat, I was changing, a changing thing among other things that were changing. More: as I gazed at that uncertain horizon, across the glowing water and the glowing leaves, the elements of the scene lost their separation. All categories and names were lost in the totality of it, dissolved in the light. This was how the episode achieved its climax, in an overwhelming acceptance. An Amen of sorts. That was what I wrote. ‘Ataraxia’ is a word I might have used, had it been at my disposal then.
An awareness of discomfort brought me back to myself – I had to stand up. One leg had become numb. True contemplatives are made of tougher stuff, I was soon telling myself, on the descent. As I picked my way down the crumbling path, I was starting to make phrases. A long life and a short life are the same was composed before I reached the car. As was Life – the intermission. And the ten-minute mystic. There has been nothing like it since. Not even ten minutes.
Standard reality reasserted itself promptly.
— Jonathan Buckley, One Boat: A Novel (W.W. Norton & Company, November 4, 2025)
Notes:
Neuroscientists tell us that awareness of beauty in one’s environment for a long time, reduces stress, can have physiological benefits, perhaps even longevity,” he explained. “And I realized that there’s not a day of my life that I didn’t see something beautiful.” He said some days he’s captivated by the way a stream of sunlight hits the wood paneling. Other days, he said, he sits enthralled watching the leaves dance in the wind through the windows. After more than seven decades, he’s convinced. “That’s my explanation. That’s the secret.”
— Vanessa Romo, who interviewed Roland Reisley (101 years old at the time) about his experience living for over 70 years in the “Reisley House, a home in the Usonia Historic District of Pleasantville, NY, designed for him by Frank Lloyd Wright. for over 70 years in 101 years of age who live in his house. (July 16, 2025, NPR Interview)
DK Photo taken at 11:18 a.m. on Nov 29 2024 as the late morning light streamed into our living room. One of those Roland Reisley moments I’ll never forget.
What does he remember best? Ah yes – a Sunday morning when he’s trying to have a lie-in, he needs sleep, all the sleep he can get, he’s been out on the fjord all night. He wakes from a dream, his boat is going down, the wheelhouse slowly filling with seawater; he’s at the bottom of the sea, he’s underwater, lying there helpless on his back, his face turned to the surface. Then he’s suddenly wide awake, one ear full of liquid, both girls sitting on top of him. Eli and Guro have brought a bottle of water into the bed; they giggle when they see his reaction. There is no happiness like this, a Sunday morning, with the early sun hanging above the mountains on the other side of the fjord, a light that settles over the bedclothes, over the floor, over his girls. He hears their breath, their laughter.
— Frode Grytten, The Ferryman and His Wife. Translated from Norwegian to English by Alison McCullough. (Algonquin Books, November 18, 2025)
Notes: