Sunset, Thursday, 23 July 2009

William Theodore Van Doren. Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on paper, 16 x 20.

On a couple of deadlines all day, so not much time to think about this, one of the most inexorable of all.

(“Be out of here by sundown, or ... ”)

We (Laura and I) last night heard a British actress say someone was “indefatigable,” and both realized we’d never spoken the word in our entire lives. (We spoke it a couple of times.) And now – the sun.

This sky coexisted with a huge white anvil thunderhead to the north – to the right. (I’ll check radar to see where it’s raining – between Warrenton and Winchester – looking more closely – that puts it right over ... Paris! – Paris, Virginia. When I realized I wasn’t going to be able to take Laura to PARIS for her very special birthday this year, I briefly considered the other Paris, which has at least one nice restaurant and inn.) Anyway, behind me, around to the east-southeast, two former thunderheads, the one on the right tremendously wide, seemingly covering the compass from SSE to SW, are spreading apart, their shadows going from white to violet-pink, their sides dramatically torqued and twisted into scalloped ridges and underhanging grotesqueries like fierce squall lines – except they aren’t, anymore.

The day was several days of skies. Sunrise a broken gold shoreline, then the tide washed in and covered everything, a gray flood. Midday, brilliant white and dark blue-gray clouds side by side in a deep blue. Midafternoon, storms, including a nice rain in brilliant sunshine – means the devil’s wife is beating a dead horse. Those are the skies that are not this one.