Buttery morning light
Of all the overused adjectives I’ve come across in writing and poetry, the one I like the most is ‘buttery’. There’s just something about buttery that is so evocative, so precise. I think it’s that proximity to the true experience, that sense of getting a little bit closer to the perfection of a moment, of nature, that is usually so out of our grasp. We try and express this beauty through poetry or story or painting or photography, but it’s never quite close enough – there’s always that little slice of longing left. In her book Bittersweet, Susan Cain reflects that C. S. Lewis described this feeling best as the“inconsolable longing” for we know not what, “that unnameable something… [the] desire for which pierces us like a rapier at the smell of bonfire, the sound of wild ducks flying overhead, the title of The Well at the World’s End, the opening lines of ‘Kubla Khan,’ the morning cobwebs in late summer, or the noise of falling waves.” Back to buttery, I think that’s why I like it so much. It almost, but not quite, perfectly encapsulates the exquisite beauty of the warmth of the yellow sun as it spills over the horizon and paints our world in light and shadow.
I’m sick this weekend, so while Jacob packed up and went off in his shiny new campervan to surf at Castlepoint, I stayed behind with my tissues. Yesterday morning, as I pottered about the kitchen making tea and generally waking up, everything suddenly had that wondrous quality of being bathed in the first light of day. It feels quite a rarity to get to really enjoy this occurrence due to the usual combination of having to work, being asleep during sunrise, and it raining or being cloudy a lot of the time in Wellington!
Check out that buttery wall
After a joyous little photoshoot, I took the fun outside and continued the party! There’s really nothing like being out in nature in the early morning.
