Attention imperative to enter this club

On the shore near Copalis, Wa., five of us gathered one sunset late in August. We huddled on that Pacific beach to watch the sun slide below the horizon. On the tailgate of Darryl’s pickup we found shelter from the wind. It was a crush there. We held our breath and crowded one another. The springs on the pickup squeaked.

The instant the diminishing sun ball vanished, the green flash glowed and was gone. Not everyone could see it. In our party of adults, all hopefully gazing, only three of us witnessed that phenomenon of light. The others felt pale, shortchanged, frustrated. The final wash of light off the black West fled. It pooled slowly and drained.

Maybe some of our eyes could not adjust fast enough to perceive the gleam; it flames forth when the sea refracts the last beam of the sun’s plunge below the horizon. Maybe my friends blinked at exactly the wrong time. Or maybe they were simply not attending hard enough to earn the renowned green flash. It is elusive and hard to see.

The athlete trains to clear the hurdle. The pianist trembles through her numbers hundreds of times. Painters, sculptors, and smiths devote years to mastering their crafts. Just so, there is an earned aspect to viewing revelations outdoors. Just as practice makes perfect, a quality of sharp attention complements the visual privilege.

For Darryl and me, the quest for the green flash had become a surrogate for the hunt. We had practiced the art of the chase for decades. We had shot animals and birds, caught fish, picked berries, plucked mushrooms. Instincts toward hunting and gathering surged strong in us.

We were raised in outdoor families. Time spent in the woods or field, around the campfire at night, were the quality times with our fathers. Our fathers modeled enviable behaviors when they told us stories of how they chased, bagged or claimed their deer, elk, and other big quarry. In living rooms and workshops, we gawked at the formerly warm trophies on the walls. We fingered the precious fabric of stories that lay behind them. We could almost hear the rifles go off, could see and smell the powder burn.

From those fathers, and for their sake, we had learned to pay attention, keep our counsel to ourselves, remain quiet and wait for the right shot. Our inner jabbering had to hush if we hoped to focus in the woods. Later, I would come to call it “attention epistemology.” At home, the TV blaring or supper dishes a’clatter, we learned to attend, to await the grace note, the muted statement of encouragement or praise. We knew it would never do to snap off rounds in haste. Words were as precious as powder and lead.

On that August evening we studied the horizon. Stunt kites were diving. Birds were swirling by the thousands, chasing sand fleas on the shore or schools of herring in the shoals. We had to background the plovers, gulls and kites, tune them out as bad distractions. Robert Macfarlane has observed of previous peoples, “attention was a form of devotion and noticing continuous with worship.” Maybe on the Pacific Rim we were reverencing the sun, its life-giving force.

Darryl filled up plastic glasses with wine following the big event. We were having a tailgate party on the beach between the towns of Ocean City and Copalis. We were celebrating success in our endeavor to explore the sun’s last beam.

Sand grains grew airborne, landing in our cups with splashes just outside of earshot. We lipped sand as we sipped. We gritted grains between our teeth.

Darryl shook hands in a pretense of solemnity. “Welcome to the Green Flash Club,” he intoned. His gravity made a good gag, because there is no club and the moment was not solemn but joyous – a species of joy that would bear no scrutiny or analysis. We attended closely to the horizon, let every distraction slip away and it paid off. The wind and surf applauded. Sand grains sang.

Those who value the green flash are prepared to wait in the wind and spray, to take a seat and risk distraction by flocks of raucous plovers and gulls. Just attend. The green flash, to my eyes, is a swift glint as the sun’s face sinks, a hint of aquamarine given then gone. It is a sudden leap of revelation that the world is vastly larger than it seems.