Light and Experience
Throughout the course of my life, I
have experienced light in multiple ways in relation to many things; these being
such factors as place, nature, climate, time, and task. Though some of these
relations occurred by purpose of gaining more knowledge, others occurred solely
by experience and memories. Therefore, it is through these moments that I am
able to connect light to specific things.
Starting back to when I was a
child, I loved playing in the woods and fields. It’s partly due to the culture
I grew up in. My family heritage lies within the country, a land full of woods,
fields, and old dirt roads. Few people, streets, and buildings were the only
other things. The woods were the favorite place that many of us children were
able to pretend to be in a mythical fairytale. Why is this? It is because the
lighting inside the woods was drastically different. Before stepping in the
woods, the sun would pound down on our heads and shoulders. However, as soon as
we stepped within the woods, a glowing and glittery light would appear over and
on us and make us cool. Spots were sometimes filled with light, yet around the
corner was a dark hidden corner. One never knew where they would be as these
areas of light and dark would change locations as the time moved on. What made
this place appear so mythical were the sun and the effects of the sunlight
moving over the trees. The swaying of the trees in the wind would make the
light shimmer. This allowed for a perfect place to play hide and seek in the
summer. However, it didn’t make for a
good reading spot. It was hard to read in the woods with light shimmering down
on the page of my book. So based on what
I wanted to do and the task at hand, determined what area in the woods I would
go to perform different tasks.
This determination of where I wanted to be and
felt most comfortable was also affected by the time of day, year, and the
climate. As summer left, and autumn arrived many of the leaves fell off the
trees leaving more areas of the sun to penetrate through to the ground. The shimmering effects were gone. This made
for the light to come further in and stay in one location longer. We children
enjoyed this because it would help keep us warmer as the climate began to get
colder, thus allowing us to play for longer periods of time. But,
as one knows, with the changing of seasons from summer to winter, the days also
become shorter. With shorter days, comes longer nights and the darkness would
soon come in. Finding ourselves in the woods in the dark was no fun. It was a
creepy scary place to be. No light could be found except for the bright door
light penetrating telling us to come home. The subtle amount of light that was present
cast creepy shadows that would move as the trees swayed with a blowing
breeze. Inside our home was the safe haven of those
cold seasons because that is where the light was. The Christmas season brought
us back mythical shimmers of light by the Christmas lights hanging on the
mantle and the tree. What makes this
mythical light so special is the rarity of it. Many days we as humans
experience light. Mostly it is direct and overhead. Rarely does it sparkle all
around. But if all we had was overall sparkle, we would go insane. Though the
light surely didn’t shimmer like the mythical woods of the summer, it did still
provide warmth and light. There was however, one period of time during the
winter months that I and my friends could re-experience another magical shimmer
and mystical effect within the woods both day and night. This period being when
snow would accumulate on the ground, the way that the sunlight would glisten as
it trickled through the ice-covered trees, transformed the woods into a totally
different extraordinary experience. Also,
when there were snowfall covering the grounds of the woods, it was a more pleasant,
and often magical experience walking through the woods at night under the
glistening moonlight as it reflected off of the snow-covered ground.
In conclusion, different light is
needed for different times, tasks, and needs to be used appropriately. But for
me it is those times when we as humans can experience something a little
different that we appreciate all the varieties of light out there and the few
special ones that make memories forever.
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