The Changing Shadow

I was driving home one night from a friends house and it occurred to me how beautiful shadows can be and how easy it can be to live in them. That May night it was cloudy out and the sun was drawing an amazing picture as it set over the horizon. It was yellow; blue; orange; gray and black.  The gray was the color that stood out the most because in some ways it was the brightest since all of the other colors seemed to flow out of it. I tried to take a picture of it when I got home but by that point the only color that would show up with my phone camera was black.

Here is the poem that came to me that night:
I live in the shadows. The in-between. The one place where light and dark collide. The one place where nothing is clear. When you live in the shadows you live in quiet and peace. When you live in the shadows you live in dark and light. Light creates a shadow and dark creates the place where you can rest.

That poem started me  thinking: what is it like to live in the shadows, does that mean that you live in dark or light or both. If you live in the shadows does anyone notice you? Does anyone care?

I tend to use  quotes to help me define concepts  and man did quotes appear when I typed in “shadows” into Google and hit the image button.  One of my favorite quotes came from George RR Martin: “The brightest flame creates the darkest shadow.” I realize now that living in the shadows is the safe way to live since you live in the background and really do not make much noise.

Taking pictures was one way I tried to figure out just what shadows meant to me. While looking at the pictures in preparation for this post I realized that they are both light and dark.  It just depends on what time of day that you take the picture and the angle of the sun.

Painting by Rene. Photo by Christiana

Taken just after sunset