Have I Told You Lately That I Love My Job?

I did men­tion sev­er­al weeks ago that Armen­ian Remem­brance Day had arrived. I’ve been mean­ing to write about that day for some time now. Armen­ian Remem­brance Day, April 24^th, is one of the two days out of the year in which the Mount David­son Cross is illu­mi­nat­ed so as to be vis­i­ble for miles. The idea to go shoot some pho­tos up there had been per­co­lat­ing in my con­scious­ness for some time, and as I gath­ered my things at the stu­dio after dance lessons that Tues­day night I thought that I real­ly should go. I was tired, it was late, and I was sup­posed to be on-site with a client the next morn­ing. I had every excuse run­ning through my head when I went to the win­dow of the stu­dio and looked West-South­west. Only the very top was vis­i­ble, but the cross was there on top of Mount David­son, shin­ing in the night. All my excus­es evap­o­rat­ed in that moment and were replaced by a sin­gle thought: game on.

I had to ride home to get my cam­era, and spent a lit­tle time pack­ing up my kit. I for­got to remove the polar­iz­ing fil­ter from my 28 – 80mm zoom, and in ret­ro­spect con­sid­er­ing the con­di­tions I prob­a­bly should have tak­en it off. The fog was rolling in, and I end­ed up with some very nice effects from the light and fog that prob­a­bly would have been some­what more pro­nounced with­out the polar­iz­ing fil­ter. Plus it dark­ens my shots by a half-stop. At night tak­ing long expo­sures, every bit counts.

I knew where the cross was, but had for­got­ten entire­ly how to find the path to get to the top. I rode around the Miralo­ma Park, tak­ing every chance to make an uphill turn no mat­ter which direc­tion I was fac­ing. Even­tu­al­ly I found the bus stop near where I’d come out of the woods on my last vis­it, parked my bike and hiked up into the woods.

There was a first-quar­ter moon in the sky but the tree canopy kept it pret­ty dark in the park sur­round­ing the sum­mit of Mount David­son. Clear­ly I’ve been in the City too long, as I did­n’t bring a flash­light into the woods. My instinct when going into a closed park at night is not to attract atten­tion to myself; see­ing where I’m going comes in a dis­tant sec­ond. My eyes are pret­ty good in the dark. I count among my bless­ings that I am the son of an astronomer. Or maybe it’s my love for car­rot juice that does it, I’ll nev­er know.

Miralo­ma Park is a pret­ty qui­et neigh­bor­hood, and I did­n’t have to go very far into the park before I real­ly seemed to be in the woods. Look­ing back there were some lights vis­i­ble through the trees, but noth­ing to pro­vide me illu­mi­na­tion save for the indi­rect light of the moon. Yet there was­n’t real­ly any ques­tion of being lost. No mat­ter whether I were East or West of the cross, my objec­tive could only be in one direc­tion: uphill. About a halfway up (though I did­n’t know how much fur­ther it would be when I was on my way up) I began to see light up ahead. At first just a glow, then as I got clos­er it start­ed to appear as an oth­er­world­ly radi­ance. As I got clos­er my heart start­ed pound­ing. The light was flood­ing the air around me.

I got close to the top and the cross itself began to become vis­i­ble. Let me tell you: that thing is huge. Step­ping up to see a 103-foot tall cross flood­ed with light is an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence. Add on to that all the clichés you’ve ever heard: com­ing from the dark­ness into the light, climb­ing to the top, and so on. It would be a mov­ing expe­ri­ence even if it weren’t a reli­gious icon.

Once upon a time the fact that it is would have both­ered me. Today I try to take my spir­i­tu­al cues in what­ev­er form they take. I try not to be prej­u­diced by sym­bols but instead try to find mean­ing in them. I’ve heard the rec­tor of an Epis­co­pal parish talk about seek­ing Jesus in oth­er peo­ple, and a priest from the Zen Cen­ter giv­ing instruc­tions to find the Bud­dha, the enlight­ened being in all peo­ple, whether or not we like or agree with them. Why not then look for the light with­in a reli­gious sym­bol? Why not pon­der its mean­ing? One does not have to believe in the lit­er­al truth of a sto­ry in order to be moved by it. Believe me: I am not try­ing to evan­ge­lize when I say that being in the pres­ence of that cross was powerful.

I shot over a hun­dred and twen­ty pho­tos that evening. I stopped three times to med­i­tate, pray, con­tem­plate, what­ev­er you want to call it. I had qui­et time. The last time I stood and placed my hand on the base of the cross. Adding on to the expe­ri­ence were the flow­ers left on the plaque com­mem­o­rat­ing the Armen­ian geno­cide. That Remem­brance Day was the rea­son I was able to be in the pres­ence of the cross that night. I’ve been a lot of places sig­nif­i­cant for their con­se­cra­tion to the spir­it, but that night was the first time I tru­ly felt I stood on hal­lowed ground.

I went to Twin Peaks to see if I could get some shots of the cross from a sim­i­lar ele­va­tion and some dis­tance. By this time the fog was rolling in thick. I parked at the park­ing lot over­look­ing the City and went to the near­est of the peaks. After a few steps up the hill it occurred to me that climb­ing a hill in strong wind and fog at night with unsure foot­ing might not have been my wis­est choice. I looked at the rolls of fog fly­ing past me, and down the moun­tain, and pressed on upward, being per­haps a lit­tle more care­ful of my foot­ing, mov­ing slow­ly and care­ful­ly in the dark.

At the top of the North­ern Peak I could­n’t see a thing from Mount David­son. I have trou­ble believ­ing that the fog was so thick that I could­n’t see through to light that bright, but I stood there on the top of the North­ern Peak wait­ing in case I might catch a glimpse. I told myself that if I could see even a lit­tle I’d come back down and climb up the South­ern Peak, far­ther from where I parked but clos­er to Mount David­son. The fog rolled over me, push­ing me steadi­ly from the West, but I nev­er saw the light of the Mount David­son Cross.

What I did see were stars. The fog was all around me, but not above me. Below me was the hazy light of the City, but above me was more or less clear depend­ing on how thick the fog rolling past was. I spent about twen­ty min­utes watch­ing in the dark, up above the hus­tle and noise, as the wind and fog swept past.

As I pre­pared to make my way back down the rocky path, I smiled to myself think­ing that most folks have more sense than to climb a moun­tain, albeit a tiny one, in the mid­dle of the night dur­ing brisk winds. And hav­ing more sense than that, most peo­ple nev­er get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to feel the fog on their face as they watch the stars appear and hide, with no one else around and no sound but the wind over the rocks. And then the thought came that capped the whole night off:

Not bad for a day in the office.