Page 54 - People & Places In Time

Two
The Hour Between Dog and Wolf
Here, in the Central Valley, I walk every evening with our aging basset hound, whom no one would ever mistake for a wolf. As I walk I keep my eyes fixed on the sky as the cobalt of twilight moves slowly from east to west overhead, preceded
by lavender and sapphire, succeeded by indigo and darkness. When the dog stops to sniff the grass
in our neighbors’ front yards, I look down at the gardens and see the clarified reds of tulips and washed yellows of daffodils shimmer away from their petals. There is a particular brilliance to
the colors of dusk in the months between the vernal equinox until the summer solstice. This period of blue in the evening is as intense and prolonged as
the sandstone red sunsets in the desert, and more stunning in depth of color and nightly duration than twilight at the coast or in the Sierra. It is
as if molecules of blue reflecting from acres of green plants across the expanse of the valley bounce against the sides of the Coast Range to the west and the Sierra to the east and collect overhead into jewelry of color.
Anonymous, from the Valley Voice
Growing Up In Exeter