p[L]ace

Seriously.

What is it about this place? California reveals herself to me in new ways every time I find myself here.

The light is just . . . different.

Ontario has a mysterious light, too. Her sunrises are like the bite of a playful lover; soft and smiling and then harder - with a gentle laugh when she makes you wince. And then you laugh, too, because mornings suck but she makes it worth it to be there with her; her face illuminated with the light of God.

A California sunrise is like a hand that spreads across your chest - stretching - with a sigh - and she's beautiful but her gaze is already far and wide and she's indifferent to you. And you long for her to notice you - deeply - and privately - but the touch of her hand tells you that she already has. And that's as good as it needs to be. And you rise up with her and follow her westward toward the day; toward the endless ocean and all of its power. A power that is given by her.

I stand before a hill. My shutter snaps open between the beats of my heart and I pause.

Exhale.

I close my eyes and let the image - my imagining - imprint on my mind. I am seeing without my eyes. I am painting from a palette of emotion and an existential summation of the scene as only I can; as only the sum of my existence can. The future of the photograph is decided by my interpretation of everything past. The color is corrected by my mood and the mood is created by my interpretation of what is before me, now, in the present.

In 1/1600th of a second the tension is infinite. Everything is motionless, rain halts in the air, a strand of hair is suspended away from your face, neither rising nor falling, and five trillion photons slam against my sensor.

Peace.

And the world resumes.

[blessed be]