Redtree Times

And Dusk Dissolves – At the West End Gallery

It was that hour that turns seafarers’ longings homeward- the hour that makes their hearts grow tender upon the day they bid sweet friends farewell…

― Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio

Dante had it right– dusk is that hour of recollection, some warm and some less so. As I age, I see this more clearly, most likely as a result of simply having more to look back on than look forward to at this stage in my life.

Don’t jump too hardly on that last line. I feel there is still a tremendous amount of living ahead for me and others my age or older. It’s just math– the ratio of time lived to the expected or hoped for time left in one’s life– says that the greater part of our life is behind us for people of my age and older.

And I believe dusk does often remind us of this fact. It’s a time when we sometimes pause to look back on the day, to reckon what we have done and not done during that time and to measure what lies ahead for the next day.

And sometimes this recollection extends back further than the day that just passed due to the moment in which it takes place. Maybe it’s the warmth and color of the sunset. Maybe it’s the way the landscape around us changes in the setting light, as colors deepen and contrast to the narrowing light. Whatever it might be in that moment, something triggers flashes of distant memories.

Words spoken and unspoken. Maybe just a glance from a face you remember or the most innocuous detail from some moment that didn’t seem important when you saw it so long ago.

Sometimes these moments are full and make sense. Sometimes they are fragments that seem insignificant. Yet they remain in place in our memory.

And as that moment of recollection passes and we move to settling in for the night and looking ahead to the coming day, these recalled moments dissolve, much like the setting sunlight melts into darkness.

There’s a wealth of recollections to pull from as one ages and maybe I see that in the depth and richness of the colors here. Maybe every stroke of color in that sky is a fleeting and flashing moment from my memory. I don’t know.

It makes me think of when my dad was in his final years suffering from dementia. His memory was spotty at best and often large segments of it were absent. I remember one instance when he was disturbed and asked me with great seriousness to tell him who his mother was. I went to a photo of her from her college yearbook (Potsdam 1918!) that was on a bulletin board we had put up in his room. I pointed her out and explained in great detail her history. He listened to me more intently than any other time I can remember in my life, like he needed to know this and wanted to inscribe it deep into memory.

Looking back on that moment now, I can only imagine him as the Red Tree looking back and, instead of the richness of individual colors in that sky of memory, he is seeing a hazy grayness with occasional peeks of color. A recognizable tree or hillside whose color has faded to a duller shade, almost gray. And the distant deeply colored mountain that might have been his mother was not even visible.

Makes me appreciate every moment, every fleck of color, every drop of light, every insignificant recollection that remains with the hope that my dusk never fully dissolves.

This post ran a few years back. I came across the image of the painting at the top, And Dusk Dissolves, and remembered that this painting was still at the West End Gallery. I had forgotten that it was there. It’s a very large piece, 30″ by 48″, so it is often difficult to find space for it on the gallery walls. But it remains a favorite of mine. Seeing it and reading the post reminded me of my parents, who I have been thinking about in recent weeks.

Here’s a song about looking back, a version of a favorite Beatles song, In My Life, from 1965‘s Rubber Soul album. Hard to believe this song is almost 60 years old. This version is from the American recordings of Johnny Cash, done in the final months of his life. n a long and storied career, I’ve always felt it was among his most impactful work. His age and ailments changed his delivery and imbued the songs with real heart-felt emotion and purity. A powerful group of music. This version of the Beatles’ song is not so different stylistically, but it it is filled with his own personal meaning which, n a way, makes it his own.