THE QUALITY OF LIGHT IN STEEL CITY IN DECEMBER WHEN YOU’RE WATCHING FROM BEHIND OFFICE WINDOWS THAT DON’T OPEN
Pittsburgh precipitation doesn’t fall subject to the laws of gravity. No, as Thomas likes to say, we’re in sort of a weather bowl up here, something to do with being a valley of hills among mountains, and we catch all sorts of air currents that look nothing like life at sea level.
Friday there was a snow squall in late morning, and the view out my office window looked like a glittery snow globe. The fine, dry snow flakes flying every direction, in nonsensical circles more than any one line, catching glints of the soft-bright sunlight as they did so.
I found myself marveling at the quality of the light shining through the clouds—the clouds soft white, edged with hints of pale blue, yellow, and pink. A three dimensional sky--no, three dimensional clouds, there was no “sky” behind them to contrast, only this soft, beatific pink-yellow light passing through them, bathing the street below. I wondered about such a light, as I have a few times these past months, is it so bright because Pittsburgh is closer to the sun? I remember my childhood with the humid Virginia haze, the flat white sky; even sickly blue with some cirrus clouds seemed unusual back then. We concerned ourselves with creeks and basements and cul-de-sacs instead.
In Texas, I walked around in awe. The wide, wide, Technicolor blue sky! Puffy white white clouds against 2-D blue like only Hollywood could offer. Something about that clear blue sky and the word Texas and the number of navy blue Cadillacs on Guadalupe made me laugh, made me walk back from some job-training seminar (north of my usual haunts) the Airport Boulevard way wearing a flannel shirt and my leather jacket in the summer sun, because the sky was so very clear and the cotton flannel was so clean and there were no sidewalks only gravel and no pedestrians only me, so I laughed and I didn’t mind sweating. But I also knew that sky had capricious powers: the power to blast me with a sunburn in the space of a fifteen minute walk. Or the power of an August thunderstorm, which could blow through with little warning, rattle the wooden houses to their shingles, and leave huge trees felled in the Austin streets.
Pittsburgh precipitation doesn’t fall subject to the laws of gravity. No, as Thomas likes to say, we’re in sort of a weather bowl up here, something to do with being a valley of hills among mountains, and we catch all sorts of air currents that look nothing like life at sea level.
Friday there was a snow squall in late morning, and the view out my office window looked like a glittery snow globe. The fine, dry snow flakes flying every direction, in nonsensical circles more than any one line, catching glints of the soft-bright sunlight as they did so.
I found myself marveling at the quality of the light shining through the clouds—the clouds soft white, edged with hints of pale blue, yellow, and pink. A three dimensional sky--no, three dimensional clouds, there was no “sky” behind them to contrast, only this soft, beatific pink-yellow light passing through them, bathing the street below. I wondered about such a light, as I have a few times these past months, is it so bright because Pittsburgh is closer to the sun? I remember my childhood with the humid Virginia haze, the flat white sky; even sickly blue with some cirrus clouds seemed unusual back then. We concerned ourselves with creeks and basements and cul-de-sacs instead.
In Texas, I walked around in awe. The wide, wide, Technicolor blue sky! Puffy white white clouds against 2-D blue like only Hollywood could offer. Something about that clear blue sky and the word Texas and the number of navy blue Cadillacs on Guadalupe made me laugh, made me walk back from some job-training seminar (north of my usual haunts) the Airport Boulevard way wearing a flannel shirt and my leather jacket in the summer sun, because the sky was so very clear and the cotton flannel was so clean and there were no sidewalks only gravel and no pedestrians only me, so I laughed and I didn’t mind sweating. But I also knew that sky had capricious powers: the power to blast me with a sunburn in the space of a fifteen minute walk. Or the power of an August thunderstorm, which could blow through with little warning, rattle the wooden houses to their shingles, and leave huge trees felled in the Austin streets.
posted by Karen Lillis at 2:37 PM
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