The particular way sunlight glints off water appeals to us in a deep, evolutionary way because it signifies clean water. So says something I read a long time ago. Whether it’s true or not I like to believe it since clean water is the building block of our life here on this globe.

Flashing lights catch our attention also. If you look at a night skyline long enough you’ll see the pulse of streetlights, backyard lights, and all the other ways we try to keep away the darkness. The stars play this game as well, although it takes a while for eyes to adjust to the subtler flickering of light that comes from time so far in the past.

The ocean does it too. Takes the light thrown our way from the sun and scatters it in our field of vision. Out past the breakers on a quiet day it shimmers the way we all want our diamonds to. Which we wear in part to catch the eyes and the envy of others. Somehow I’m not jealous of nature and her glittering.

It’s a democratic sparkle. Just because I see it doesn’t mean others can’t and doesn’t make any less for me. There’s plenty of glitter to go around. It’s not pie.

Fire joins the game as well. It amps the intensity then fades, all in one flame. It flickers and crackles and breathes. There’s a lovely dichotomy there, that both fire and water - such fundamental elements of our ability to exist on this earth - both play light games with our vision. They do the thing that that makes us stop and sit and stare. In that time of watching we do the same thing humans have done since ever. We look into the fire and the ocean and see what so many of our predecessors saw. Flickering, dancing, glittering light sent our way from the center of our universe.

But whether it’s on the ocean or the lake or the roaring campfire, the light is playing. Sunlight has the work to do of growing plants and all the things that rely on them (including us) but when it hits the water it’s recess. Look how fancy I can be, it says. Watch this, it burbles. I can be useful and beautiful at the same time.

It lets us do our thing. Grow also. Be what we are.

All in a daylight’s work.

Inspired by an experience in San Diego, California.