The quality of light

I'm not an artist. I am, though, the son and grandson and brother of artists, and grew up looking for the beauty around me. Often, that beauty wasn't imbued by shape or color, but by the light. I still am stopped cold sometimes by the light off of snow in January or the haze of August; there are objects there, even people, but in that moment it all is defined for me by something more ephemeral and eternal all at once: the light.

I know the light in different places. In New York, off the red brick of a building. Yes, I have been in that building, had coffee there with fascinating people, but walking past it, what defines it is something else that is not really a part of me. Light is humbling stuff.

The photo above was taken at a farmer's market in Minneapolis last year. It is September light. In this place. That is different than the September light in Los Angeles or New York; it has its own timbre and pitch, as distinctive as the singing voices of a mother and aunt.

It is not a small grace, that beauty. It is enormous, encompassing, and true.