NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY

A week behind the rest of the Muggles, but I finally caught up with the last Harry Potter installment.  The critics were right.  This was the grande finale, eliciting the most nuanced performances from the cast (young and old).

I left the theater in a reflective mood, feeling as one does at the close of some ephemeral pleasure -- like reaching the end of a terrific book, or series of them.  I've enjoyed the journey J.K. Rowling paved for all childlike souls, and the accompanying films drove home the sense of growing up and leaving childhood behind forever (and I left mine so long ago).

Sun setting over the hills
Taken from the car on the way to San Francisco

Sun behind the hills
Taken from the car on the way to San Francisco

Robert Frost may have been referring to the Fall from Eden here, but it applies equally well to fleeting moments:

So dawn goes down to day,
Nothing Gold can stay.

Seeking a pick-me-up, I wandered into one of our favorite bookshops in Santa Cruz,

across from the sculpture of the old man playing the Saw, a corner frequented by musicians and affectionately adorned with flowers by locals

Old Man playing the Saw
downtown Santa Cruz, CA

and was fired up again!  My mind is now engulfed in "The Tragedy of Arthur's" deadpan wit and humorous homage to the Bard of Avon.  And, if there's another series of delights I want to embark on, I realize I have yet to finish the entire Shakespeare canon.  (This project could take decades since I first encountered the Bard at 12 years old, when my parents handed me his Book of Sonnets for my birthday.)

So at the risk of second-rate philosophizing, we keep on searching.  It doesn't need to end.  Possibilities are endless.

I was telling a friend's young daughter about the photo below, if you look closely, those lights are really fairies dancing under water.

Sunlight flickering in the water
Pond in Sunnyvale, CA

All photos: The Foolish Aesthete