Description of a Visual Event for Lighting 1

My grandparents have owned this small lakehouse (we call it the Camp) on this comparably small lake in the Adirondacks for about four decades now. There’s a clarity to the Camp during the day. The air, the water, the light, it all feels refreshing; cool, but comforting. It doesn’t smother me, but just provides for me a sense of ease, as if this environment simply exists in another plane of existence, almost like a dream you never want to end. With the lake so close, light isn’t simply something that falls from the sky, it rises up from the water to immerse you, as though you’re swimming through it. It doesn’t beat on you, like it does at the beach, it’s gentle. With the change into night, the dream vanishes. Rather, this world of comforting serenity is replaced by one of harsh perspective. I see in a way nearly impossible at home with the dull glow of the city around me like a buzzing insect I can’t ignore. The few pinpoints in the sky that I would see normally, have multiplied a hundredfold, filling it. The moon, which feels so big and close here, casts itself across the entirety of the lake, its image quivers in the water, uncertain of itself. The glow of the water and the sky, though only giving a hint of the sights around me, is enough that I can essentially see unaided by anything outside of nature, though the denizens of this new world make no attempt to reveal themselves to me, veiled as they are. It doesn’t feel the same as during the day. No longer cool, but cold. The comfort of the earlier day is gone, replaced by the suggestion that I am on my own. As the moon climbs higher in the sky, it swims away from me, towards the center of the lake. The clarity is still here, but it no longer has good intentions; it casts doubt where it once gave reassurance. When I can see this clearly into nature and into the space beyond enough to see the gossamer bands of the Milky Way, it has a shrinking effect on me. I feel miniscule when compared to it all. The singularity of the moon as it travels fills me with a loss of hope. It is everything in my life that I strive for, but which, inevitably, remains simply an ever-fleeting dream. When I look up, I am confronted by the undeniable truth that I and everyone I know are just like those stars, mere dots, as far as the universe is concerned, but this cruelty is only temporary, soon to be relieved again by the caring touch of day.