Where is the line?

I’ve been watching this line of shadow move across the valley floor with some excitement. Wondering if I could wait out on the road and see it pass over me. Wondering how fast that line of mountain shade travels. And thinking…wouldn’t it be fun to run WITH the line?

Attempt #1: I stood out where the driveway meets the road and awaited the sun’s disappearance. It is hunting season, so numerous hunters drove past me to the forest access. Me, idle on the road. Just looking around. Waiting. For the line.

We waved at each other.

As the sun nearly dipped behind the peak, my vision sharpened and I tuned into the landscape west of me. Watching, discerning, trying to differentiate shade from light. Holding in sight the darkest shadows on the mountain side and tracing them toward me to find the line. Essentially, I felt ungrounded as this questionable grey-white light surrounded me. It was a blur. I strained my eyes and emphatically asked myself, “is THIS it?” eeeeeee… “Is THIS it?”  “Now???” Until the shining light, turned pale, turned opaque, turned mirror-like, turned intangibly dull… moved right through me. No line.

Me, left idle on the road. Just looking around in amazement. And laughing.

Attempt #2: This time I decided to sit on my driveway and focus steadily on the crushed white rock before me. Watch and wait in privacy where I wouldn’t be distracted. See if I could identify the change of light as it swept past me this time. I would watch for this gradual shift and try to get more familiar with it. Eventually, finding that “line” as it swept past me.

I sat there and challenged myself to NOT look west, but to be so attentive that I might actually feel the light shifting without the obvious clue of the sun’s position. I sat and waited and my mind started to do its thing. Wander. It wandered out of the driveway, into a story of yesterday or an imagination of tomorrow and I followed those thoughts so far, that suddenly, I realized that I lost my moment. The shadow line lay forty feet in front of me. More laughter.

Well. There is always tomorrow.

Attempt #3: Keep an eye out for photos on UnderwaterBooks Instagram, posted November 15th.