My poor Mom. I called her from my cell phone and I think I must have sounded a bit deranged, a little too happy.
“I had to call and tell you I’m having just the best morning,” I gushed. It was 7 AM here in the Pacific Northwest, 10 AM where Mom lives. I proceeded to babble on in a kind of high-on-nature blahblahblah about how beautiful the early morning sky had been, what an amazing sunrise I’d seen, yadayadayada. My mom is pretty calm and level-headed, and that’s good. I was in such an it’s-good-to-be-alive Out There mental state that one of the participants in this phone call needed to have their feet on the ground, and it was obvious that person wasn’t going to be me.
I told Mom how my morning had unfolded: I was driving to a photographic job in Seattle that had an early start. There was a delicate sliver of a moon in the morning sky and I pulled the car over, photographed the scene, and drove on. A few minutes later several bands of clouds lighted up. Again I pulled over, took more pictures, and drove on. Finally I approached the Green Lake area -- popular with runners and walkers -- and ground fog began began to develop. I parked the car as the sunlight hit the fog and the landscape went absolutely bonkers, turning otherworldly red-orange. I was photographing madly (and I think maybe giggling to myself.) The crazy light only lasted a few seconds.
I was standing near a running path when the light returned to normal. As runners passed by I greeted them and asked: “Wasn’t that intense?!” and they looked at me and I think had no clue what I was talking about. I sensed I was behaving like an odd man with a camera.
I called my Mom. Even when I’m being odd, my Mom seems happy to talk to me.
