At night something illuminates the feelings, its quiet, no one is on the street, almost every inhabited place is dark, and everyone is asleep; there is another thought, it seems minds are not talking to each other, a strange silence, one could say, one had entered a surreal world. In the early morning its still dark, and the whole world seems to belong to one solitary person who is awake. Imagine a white horse flying into the sky, a dark sky that is still, as if there is no movement, there are strange sounds, as in an animated film, and a long road with trees without foliage on both sides. The film continues to move almost endlessly, with a figure riding a bike on that road. The dark hours of the night and early morning might be places where calm feelings are open. Perhaps one could reach deep into their emotions to feel and observe something beyond their lives, something that is deeper. Perhaps again, it’s reaching down into memories and imagination. If one is in an apartment, look down at an empty road with street lamps on either side casting an amber glow, a conveyed feeling of emptiness and deep silence possibly making one feel lonely, contemplative, and alive. With the artificial sounds of daytime gone. The visual things of the day had disappeared, people walking about, cars on the road, thoughts of people, groups of people conversing. It’s like the death of one period to the next, a new beginning.
Things can be thought of about the night, nothing is taken away because each individual feels differently about the night and what imagination and memory conveys to them. Think of a whole world belonging to one person. What kind of world could be built? What is the night saying? One could dispense of the logical thoughts, that the night can’t speak, and open ones self up to anything that is possible. Ghost stories are explained from the darkness; imagine lamps holding spirits of dead accident victims of car crashes or people that had been run down. Walking on a road, a figure walks behind in the distance a person looks back, and it’s not there, finding out it’s the person who walked on that same road minutes ago.
Imagine sitting alone under a lamp at night writing about that moment, the amber glow from above, it seems someone could be there. Words will come to the writer probably under that lamp, nowhere else. Eventually city construction destroys that place. The lamps tell the writer where to go to find them. One silence in their thoughts, feeling there is something beyond this world that what the amber lamps of the city could convey.
The glowing of the San Francisco Oakland Bridge during the night, the powerful glare speaking for the colossal bridge. The lights along the bridge speaks of civilization, yet lights indicate nothing in themselves its what the observer thinks, what they wish to understand. Night frees the imagination, imagine that bridge is somewhere else, part of an imaginary civilization or the glaring lights could conjure the excitement of the city. On a bridge at night, the traffic is gone, and again, silence, imagine as if centuries are passing by, everyone is gone in the world only a solitary person exists with a car driving to the city. There could be a fear of deserted places in the city at night. A lighted building with fountains could form an image of a technological world with a positive feeling. An artificial glare of cold lights, a sense of sterility it seems under those lights someone would feel outside of everything. The tall glass arches of the building also give a sense of comfort against the sterile lights.
The night is comfort. The dark surrounds one, insulating one from the outside world, a place to hide in a mythical forest, the moon above as the only light. A sense of quiet again with the sound of a piano, sometimes snow could be imagined as fading, yet it’s not but there’s comfort in imagining it.
Against the dark, like a tapestry the city has lights blanketed by night, like a forest of night trees, these trees are imagined. Although there are people walking around, there is still a feeling of solitude, nothing from those distant places reaches one in an apartment they are just the things of life, there is no concern because the dark modifies them as everyone is going home, the city has become quieter. The contrast between light and dark evokes something profound that every observer would describe differently. The shape of lamps brings imaginary things, ones that are shaped like spheres or cylinders that conjure imaginary lights leading to paths to the mountains or seashore or becoming structures of great cities, night also conveys anything that the imagination wishes, anything is possible.
There are water fountains that create another worldly feeling, if lights are observed under the water, they look like entranceways to another world. Moisture and light create a combination that could be conjured into anything by imagination, a futuristic city, colored lights under the water could be part of a palace with water shooting from spouts, or imagine an elegant place to eat in the 1960s where people are dressed in suits and evening dresses.
A night inside of a building with extensive glass windows reflections of lamps as they seem to recede into the distance as if they are hanging outside on the street. Think about sphere-shaped lights imagined as hanging globes in the sky.
Look into the night, observe reflections in the windows, the lights of a city, see what could be imagined and perhaps something could come to life.
Robert J. Matsunaga
