Tooling the Temporary

via Daily Prompt: Temporary

Transitory light of a setting sun emblazons the Fort Amherst south-side headland of St. John’s, NL in late April 2015. The viewpoint, from the Signal Hill side of The Narrows, is evanescent and spectacular where a climber, high, high, high amongst the rocks is breathless with vertigo not only from the steep climb up from The Battery, but from the stunning beauty of the distant view of lighthouse, houses, and support buildings in their dazzling display of white structures with red roofs, set against steep, stark shadows. Below them there is a large, steeply pitched area of withered grass with just a hint of seasonal change to green. Below that, several grey World War 2 concrete defence bunkers, with their crude early forms of architecture brut perched precariously, scrunched down, pretending to be equals of ancient, eternal crag, scarp, and cliff. At the final level down is the patient ocean with its longing to subdue the vain concrete forms.

A little offshore some pack ice and bergs imperceptibly drift into intertidal oblivion. The climber, clinging and resting amid some shrubbery in a rock crevice, steadies herself with one hand, and with the other raises her phone to capture the ephemeral scene. Breath held and then there is one barely audible fleeting click to record it, and some other clicks to send a copy on to me and others.

This week, two years later, I’ve used cousin Brenda’s photo to interpret the scene in what is considered to be the most useful medium to capture transient and fleeting effects: watercolour.  Perhaps I can tool the temporary into something that might endure, like the bunkers, for at least some generations beyond my immediate goal.