The Fabric of Life...

On the Autumnal Equinox this year, 2024, I experienced a marvel. Both an architectural and an astronomical marvel.

At 6:46, the precise moment the sun set over the vast Pacific Ocean, I stood breathless on the grand travertine courtyard of The Salk Institute in San Diego witnessing the giant golden orb, low in the saturated sky, line up along the “River of Life.”

The “River of Life” water feature, the architectural wonder’s centerpiece, represents the constant trickle of discoveries spilling into the greater body of knowledge, symbolized by the Pacific Ocean beyond. The sun sets along the axis of the “River of Life” twice a year when the spring and fall equinoxes announce the turning of the season.

The Salk Institute, an homage to science set in concrete, teak and marble, is a masterful design collaboration of Louis Kahn and Jonas Salk.  I felt monumentally insignificant standing between the two mirror-image structures, each six stories tall, flanking the sweeping central courtyard.

The silence was absolute; I stood mesmerized, scarcely aware of the handful of others present until a young dancer posed briefly for her photographer companion to document their experience.

Stretching out before me, a slender, shimmering stream cut along the travertine to point beyond the coastal bluffs to the sea, lining up directly with the sunset. Stunning synchronicity. Beyond imagining.

Marvel, indeed.

I woke the next morning, still overflowing with the grandeur and spirituality of the previous night’s phenomenon. The warmth and glow palpable. I lingered under the covers, not wanting to break the spell.

A ding signaling a text message interrupted.

Rose Marie Lochmann died with grace today. 

My heart raced as I felt my body turn cold.

 My radiant friend, Rose, gone. Gone as the summer season ended. Rose, the personification of summer.

Golden.

Angelic.

Joyous.

Exquisite. Inspirational.

Rose who loved the ocean, the sunset, all of nature. Who taught and learned and laughed out loud. Who charmed and inspired and loved. Who wrote about life and lived it fully.

Still clinging to the bedcovers, Auden’s poetry came to my mind.

“About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position: how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just

walking dully along.”

Auden’s elegiac message highlighting the strange, contrasting human experiences that are part of the fabric of life fails to soften the loss of Rose.

It is only in reflecting on the splendor of the setting sun over the Pacific Ocean as summer came to an end and the autumn season began that I feel some small sense of solace.