IRIDESCENT

Light

Light is the way I feel when I look across the room and see your face. Light is what hits me softly through the big windows in my art classroom-- one kind of hitting that is actually healing. Light is what keeps things living, including me.

I am held together by the light that hits me through different windows. In the morning it is the egg-yolk-yellow that crashes through my windows that nudges me awake, shouting all the things I get to do and feel that day. In the afternoon, when I come home from school, and light has aged a little, it is no longer the childish, smashing, young light that woke me up just hours before. Light has a short lifespan, it lives only for twenty four hours before being reborn again as something familiar, but new. By the time 3 o’clock has come around, the light on my walls has already become middle aged, it is wrinkled slightly like laugh lines on my walls, in slanted rows created by the shades, and it’s mid-life crisis makes the light think it can blind me if it reflects off my mirror brightly enough. By evening the light is old, and gray around the edges, only whispering memories of silver linings. Even at it’s old age the light doesn’t slip away yet, it only changes into something wise and grand- moonlight. Moonlight is the stage of life when a person is precious in their age, they need not do anything more than offer pearls of wisdom and sit back and watch the young enjoy the night, they wear their silver hair gracefully and remember the joys of wearing dark colors. At night, light is mystery, a suggestion that life be lived boldly before the reborn bright light shines on reality and reminds of responsibility.

Light is what guides the lost home to their mothers and their lovers and their dogs. It shines over frustrated waters and proves that there is always hope. The light catches sailors and throws their despair overboard. Light is the sun rising on your best days and the setting on your worst days. It is the sparkly reflection off snow and the sun’s ballet shoes when it hits the sea. It is lampshades brightening your favorite book. Light is a friend, a dancer, and a helper.

Light was the first thing we all saw when we first opened our eyes to the world. It is what teaches us about supernovas and wishing on stars. Everything we’ve ever discovered outside of our own tiny planet is thanks to light that has been shining for billions of years, and the only places here that we haven’t explored yet are the spots too dark and cold. Light is a map, a guideline, and a magnifying glass showing us where we are where, and where we could go if we are brave enough.