In case that you have not noticed, I am a rather visual guy. Been painting and drawing and shooting photographs since I was a wee lad. I have lived a life rich in peak visual experiences. And being a chronicler, and prone to compare, at times I indulge in thinking about the most beautiful things and places I have ever seen. Besides staring into Leslie's eyes, of course.
And funny enough, I have no visual record of any of the peak moments. It is almost like that they were so sublime that they could not risk being captured, less they fail in some way, which they surely would in contrast to the original.
But here is my top list of sights.
1. When I was seventeen or eighteen I was on a beach on the Red Sea called Nuweba. It was given back to Egypt when Israel relinquished the Sinai. Visualize a desert oasis, the most gorgeously purple scalloped Saudi Arabian peaks just across the water way. Incredibly hot, Bedouins squatted near their date palms and camels casually sauntered by. I used to be a diver and the undersea fauna was more vibrant than anything I have ever see in the Caribbean or elsewhere. Unparalleled beauty and sunset, my peak experience.
2. A double rainbow goodbye in Banff as I was leaving British Columbia on my great hitchhiking year off from high school in 1974. So beautiful it stopped my breath, the arced rays hanging between two misty mountains.
3. Walking with Leslie in Haleakala Crater, Maui as the colors shifted beneath us like a Matisse painting. Sublime.
4. A crested eagle sitting on a fence post in Northern Kenya, its tuft falling forward over his or her face.
5. One hundred and twenty feet down on an uncharted dive spot on the north wall of Grand Cayman. Looking up at the beautiful sun refracted in the water above me. Incredible feelings of happiness and elation coursed through my body.
6. Driving through the beautiful postcard like snowy vignettes of Tierra Amarilla one New Mexico winter.
7. Les and I drove through the Olympic Peninsula in the dead of winter, towards Hoodsport on the 101. Our northern most rain forest, its tinkly crystalline beauty was beyond exquisite.
8. Snorkeling in the beautiful lagoon of Xelha in the Mayan Riviera near Tulum. I swam with a huge leopard ray, indescribably beautiful.
No comments:
Post a Comment