An epiphany

Walking across a sky bridge, I encountered a photographer for the Architectural Design department. I saw them shooting my building yesterday, and today, in the fading afternoon light, they were shooting this sky bridge. A 4x5 b/w Polaroid was shot to test composition, and as they imposed a black frame around it, the scene was transformed. No longer the drab, mundane cement and steel bridge that my plodding shoes echoed across daily, it was archetypal, structure, geometry, pattern spanning across the open sky.

I walked on in awe, and realized that I needed to strip away the miasma of life, the buffeting of emotions, the push and pull of obligation and resistance or authoritarianism and rebellion, the oppressive burden of living, breathing, eating, trying that one needs to do. It may sound melodramatic and overly romanticized, but for the next five minutes, my senses and perceptions opened up. I inhaled the verdant shades of green grass and leaves, the vibrant rouge of petals, the tactile density of stucco walls, the humming, nay singing, of life and nature and reality.

Capture the passion in life, ingest it. Let its myriad harmonies, visions, and caresses fill the top of the palate, slither down the tongue. Let the ringlets of its saccharine juice trickle down the corners of the mouth.

And so it starts.