Baltimore Sunset (A Note)

Tonight’s sunset, when it gets posted (probably not until Monday, ditto for tomorrow’s), will come from a vantage point on York Road in northern Baltimore, at a spot where I’ve done several others. Right now it’s just a cryptic-looking ballpoint sketch in a notebook with a few words scribbled all over it, like “dirty pale [‘pale’ underlined three times] gold,” “pale drained blue,” “stronger blue.” I talked with a friend about this, about how, after watching and painting a few thousand sunsets, it becomes more and more possible to remember them, or get them into a linear sketch. There develops a shorthand vocabulary of the sky that can contain personal shades of distinction and bring back the most important thing, which is, the moment.