Love at Second Sight

When my nephew from Southeast Alaska was just a tot, he came to Seattle and squinted up at the sky. “What’s that stuff in my eyes?” he asked. “What stuff?” asked his mom. “That shiny stuff.”

Oh, that would be sunshine. Yes, the sun does shine in Seattle, even more than in Juneau, but so not much lately. Our weather tends to be soft, our skies pastel.

It was autumn when we left Seattle last Friday.

Two hours later, we stepped off a plane into summertime.

The California sky was so blue!

 
The light was intense, and even the shadows seemed to take on a life of their own.

This was most noticeable in the courtyard of the Cantor Art Museum on the Stanford campus, where we saw a sculpture by Robert Serra.

It was 200 tons of iron, 13 feet tall, 67 feet long.  At first I thought it looked like smoke stacks on a steamer or scrap metal from an old factory.

But there is more to it than meets the eye.

It is two interlocking figure 8s that we could step inside…

…to interact with…and become a part of the sculpture.

The slanting walls were surprising, but the effect was intriguing.

We felt like Alice going down the rabbit hole.

Each step brought a new view.

The interplay between light and shadow and sky was brilliant.

We viewed a hundred canvases, each one borrowing colors from the same palette…

…but every one a distinct new creation.

It was playful.

Energizing!

 

Definitely a case of love at second sight.

All words and images copyright Naomi Baltuck.

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Shadowplay

What is life?  The flash of a firefly in the night, the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.  It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.  –Native American Blackfeet–

Every man has a different idea of beautiful…best to take the gesture, the shadow of the branch, and let the mind create the tree.–Wm. Faulkner

A man cannot jump over his own shadow–Yiddish proverb

Beware the dog–it’s shadow will not bite.  –Danish proverb–

Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.  –Swedish proverb–

If you stand straight, you need not fear a crooked shadow.–Chinese proverb–

Observe carefully, and you will find wisdom even in the shadows. –African proverb–

One can live within the shadow of an idea without grasping it.–Elizabeth Bowen–

The shadow is often more interesting than the object itself.–Ellen Thompson–

There are dark shadows on earth, but its lights are stronger in the contrast.–Charles Dickens–

Imagination is the real and eternal world, of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow.–Wm. Blake (1757-1827)

No hill is without gravestones, no valley without shadows. –South African proverb–

Like our shadows, our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.–Edward Young–

Count your nights by stars, not shadows; count your life with smiles, not tears.–Italian proverb–

All images c2013 Naomi Baltuck

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Click here to see Turkey, a Land of Light and Shadows.

Turkey, a Land of Light and Shadow

Turkey is a land of contrasts–modern and ancient, Eastern and Western, light and shadow.

Everywhere we went, people welcomed us warmly.

We saw ancient churches and mosques, and magnificent palaces.

Cappadocia, in Central Turkey, was the home of the Hittites, nearly two thousand years B.C.E.

Uncle Mustafa guided us through an underground city there.  The ancient Hittites had carved eight levels of tunnels in the soft volcanic rock.

The city served as a shelter in case of attack, with stores of food and water to feed 5,000 people for three months.

Then we saw Cappadocia from above, in a hot air balloon…

We swam in the Mediterranean off the coast near Antalya, and ate fish caught from the back of the boat for lunch.

Near Konya we visited Tinaztepe Magaralari, a cave with underground lakes.

At Hieropolis, we soaked our feet in the hot springs where Cleopatra and Marc Antony honeymooned.

In Istanbul we visited the Byzantine Cistern, built by Emperor Justinius in the 6th century.  It’s a huge underground stone forest built with recycled Roman columns.  It was the size of two football fields, and held 57 million gallons of water.

A cruise on the Bosphorus took us past this fortress.

The Bosphorus divides Istanbul, a city of 17 million.  One side is in Eurupe, and the other in Asia.  This bridge joins one continent to the other.

Kusadasi was a lovely harbor town, where we could watch the sun set from our balcony each evening.

They say the beaches of Gallipoli are haunted by ghosts from the disastrous war between the British and the Turks in 1915.  Many New Zealanders and Australians were called in to fight for the British.  Nearly everyone we met there was either a Kiwi or an Aussie.

After a tragic waste of human life on both sides, the British and their allies withdrew.  Eli and I visited British and Turkish cemeteries; both were heartbreaking.  A few years ago, one of the few survivors of the 57th Turkish Battalion returned to the site at the age of 108, with his great granddaughter.  This statue commemorates their visit.

I don’t know when I will see the sun set over Turkey again, but I am already looking forward to the day.

All words and images copyright Naomi Baltuck.

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