Awaiting the Green Flash

I got up early this morning. The sun hadn’t come up, I could tell because the sky had lightened somewhat in anticipation of sunrise but it wasn’t there yet. I took a look out on the water. The sky was clear. There were a few clouds hanging on the mountains at Sargent and Cadillac but otherwise the sky seemed unobstructed.

I threw on a bathrobe and went to the living room. I hoped it wasn’t too cold in there. Last night’s fire had died out I was sure. How much heat was retained? As I slide open the door from the chilly back hall I was pleasantly surprised by the warmer atmosphere that greeted me. I could stand it without having to build a fire.

This was important because I speculated that this might be a morning to catch the green flash. It’s one thing to watch the sun as it sets and gauge about when it will disappear behind the Earth’s curve leaving only magnificent reds, pinks, and oranges with just a brief moment of green at the tangent where it left your view; it’s quite another to find that point at sunrise. The point where it will rise and quickly run through the spectrum of color leaving your mind’s eye with a memory. So fast is it that you have to replay it in your mind, unsure of what you have seen. It’s a momentary burst of yellow green light, maybe some purple.

I sit and I wait. I try to calculate where it will be. To see the green flash you need to have a smooth surface such as the horizon of the ocean. Too many waves or too big and it may be lost. I’m on the edge of The Western Bay behind Mount Desert Island, home of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. The highest mountain on the east coast is here, Cadillac, named for the four-flusher who halfway across the Atlantic gave himself the preposterous title and then began to name as much as he could after the appellation. Ever after hearing the story of Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a commoner who made up the title, lied to his father-in-law about his age, and created a coat of arms by stealing from others and is the man we remember for naming this mole of a mountain after himself; whose unreal coat of arms can still be seen on a car hyped as the epitome of luxury here in America.

But Cadillac Mountain and it’s nearby rival Sargent have an asset for watching the green flash; they are bald. Huge stretches of smooth granite sculpted by eons of wind and rain. If you can’t see to the horizon then looking at sunrise over a distant smooth object should do. But if there are clouds in the way then all is lost. Around the peaks hung a long low band of moisture. Was it not to be? Would I be foiled by those clouds?

I looked at the horizon trying to guess the exact spot where the sun would first appear.

If you study the subtle shades of light on the horizon at the sun’s rise and it’s setting you’ll notice that the light turns red away from where the sun is, not at the point where it actually rises. The red/pink effect comes in two distinct patterns. One is opposite where the sun is. The far side of the horizon will glow pink. The other pattern is a redder color; it is seen to either side of where the sun will be. I think of it is as a bowl of red light that the sun is pushing before itself and I, being on the inside of the bowl, will only see the two places where the rim of the bowl contacts the horizon. Between those two points of reddish orange there is a faint yellow green tint to the fading grays and coming blues. The sky tends to be still. I try to find the middle; the point between the reds that will be the exact spot where the sun will rise. I know as time progresses the reds will slip ever further to the sides of the horizon and the central point will become brighter.

But will that point be on the bald part of the mountain? Or will it be where the pine trees are and thus present a ragged edge and the green light diffused and lost? Will the clouds obstruct it?

I remembered being in this room with my father, waiting for the green flash to come over Cadillac Mountain. It was February, It was cold. The sky was clear. We had gotten up several mornings to await the sunrise. Each morning we had been thwarted by the clouds hanging on the top of the mountain. But not this one morning, we waited side by side in the chilly cold stillness of dawn. Then it came. Like an emerald green laser it burn into my mind’s eye. So clear, so bright, so unforgettable. If you’ve seen the green flash in warmer climes like the Caribbean the flash tends to be softened by the moisture in the air, but February in Maine it’s clear, sharp and unforgettable. I remember that moment and the moments before; we sat together. There was nothing to say. I could feel the connection. Father to son, waiting, anticipating, wondering.

Today I wondered as well. I saw the water flowing out with the tide. The waves dimpled the surface. there were two curved bands of water that pushed out below the dimpled surface. What was that? What could cause it I wondered. I watched the slight fog, the “smoke on the water” running out of the bay with the water. a single duck and a smaller pelagic bird sat silently on the water awaiting the dawn.

The sky is yellower now. I look at the notch between Cadillac and Sargent. It’s clear. I wonder; I hope that will be the place where the sun rises. When you have as wide a view of the horizon as you do here in Maine you get a good sense of where the sun will be at sunrise. In the summer it rises far to my left, behind the large green tree covered island. On December 23rd it’s almost straight ahead on the far right side of Sargent Mountain. In February I know it’s right over Cadillac to the left of Sargent. But now? I’m not sure. I allow myself to be confused.

The smoke ghosts of the water are in full retreat scampering not down the bay but angling across it, as if to hide in the far inlets where the sun will lastly shine. Hoping desperately to hide from the rays that will spell their doom, vampires of the dawn.

Two times I remember sitting like this with my father. Once was awaiting the green flash, the other was watching a young college quarterback. My dad had no interest in sports; saw no reason why it mattered who the pitcher was in a World Series game or a quarterback in a football game. One was as good as another to him. He missed the subtlety.

I remember sitting in the old TV room in Connecticut, my mother’s office. We had a big square box that sat upon a table with a black and white tube in it. Turn it on and wait a minute or more and then something would happen. I remember the warm smell of the vacuum tubes and the ever present hum. Dad joined me part way through the first half. He started in on his “What difference does it make who the pitcher is or who the quarterback is?” routine and, for the first half, it certainly didn’t make any difference, nothing much happened. I remember saying to my dad, “I hear this guy Steve Spurrier is pretty good.”

In the second half Steve could do no wrong. He hurled long loping passes that a darting wide receiver could only catch over his outstretched arms on the outside shoulder as he raced down the sideline. He did it time and again; first to his left, then his right, then down the middle. It was a magical performance, maybe Spurrier’s best. Dad was silent. I think he saw what the difference was. For that half against whomever Steve Spurrier played - I will always be thankful and indebted to him.

A line of five birds flew down the bay flapping their wings desperately fast, trying to gain speed before the coming dawn.

The clouds over Sargent were turning red then yellow golden then orange. The sun would becoming up there - somewhere. It looked like the clouds would take away the flash. It meant I’d have to wait longer to be sure. Once I saw the rays of the sun I could turn away, but not before.

I have been watching the flat spot created by the Great Pond next to Echo Lake. It’s to the right of where the sun will be rising and it’s sharply defined between Mansell Mountain and Beech Mountain. There is a flat low bank of fir trees that hide the body of water, still it’s an odd flat spot in the horizon. The clouds have been packed in that space like its a glacier of tumbling snow and ice forced to sit between the two mountains. With the light rising to the left the clouds are lit first in pale somber grays then lighter tones. As the sun rises they color yellow and orange and pink and red. As the streak of cloud over Sargent lights itself in white light surrounded by bright stunning orange and yellow the glacier of clouds appears passive in grays and reds.

A cloud has skirted across the sky its faint wraithlike composition suggests the lion on the British crest. It seems to be ready, claw lifted to rake the few wisps in front of it. Later there’s another image, a goat?, I can’t remember, it’s faded from my memory already. Gone.

I dare not take my eyes off the impending rise for fear that in those brief few seconds I’ll miss it. I have my camera ready and I snap away at random intervals. I wish my camera could do more to capture the essence of what I’m seeing but it fails me.

I think of Robert Frost. “The horse must think it strange to a pause in these woods.” I think of his being unable to read his poem at Kennedy’s Inauguration but what a boost Jack Kennedy did for poetry to have him there.

I think about my friend Mel who made me see for the first time the subtlety of shades of green in the new spring foliage. What a wonderment it is. What poetry. What subtlety of light and shade and color and tone. In a world crying out for answers in black and white I see the wonder of the heavens displayed before me in a vast palette of poly tone and color.

Then on the right side of the mountain, below the line of clouds but above that of the trees I see it, the breaking green. It rolls up the hill following the slope, like an old fashioned can opener, the kind with a hook you have to jab into the can and rock up and down around the rim, so the sun rips the through the veil of gray and rolls up the mountain in one brilliant instant ripping flash of green light followed by a piercing bright white light so intense I have to turn away seconds later.

I savor the moment, remember the memories. I wonder what it was I just saw. It is lost but remembered. It grows incomprehensible seconds later. But it was there. It was glorious.

Thanksgiving Morn 2011