Faded In The Sun
In Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus’ statement that, “You can still die when the sun is shining.” can be read several ways. First, as a direct reference to his namesake, Daedalus the craftsman, whose art led to his imprisonment, and who warned his son Icarus “not to fly too close to the sun” as they made their escape with his clever wax wings. Second, it is a constant reminder that disaster can strike at any time, not just in the dark places of our imaginings.
Looking up has long been a way to orient oneself. Celestial bodies anchor the sky and my sense of place, the sun is the sun and the moon is the moon no matter where you travel. Increasingly hot summers in Los Angeles present me with an ever more fragile landscape, where fire can erupt at any given moment and neighborhood walks have to be carefully timed, if taken at all, on triple digit days. Ancient portents like a full solar eclipse no longer signal the end of the world, but perhaps we don’t need such signs anymore.