“Such Perfection”
By Chloé Cooper Jones, originally published in The Believer (2019). Selected for inclusion in Best American Travel Writing 2020 and recommended by Longreads.
Illustration by Joe Gough
But I struggle to keep my composure. The mountains have slowly been gathering themselves up, out of the fields and above the rooftops. They are now so high and so close to the train. Without warning, the lake is upon us. I notice first a change in the light. The sun breaks freely on the water, drawing sharp silver lines along lapping waves. In the changing light, the faces of strangers on the train look new. I see now a faint scar on the young man’s temple, and the woman reading the book is younger than I’d first thought. Her mouth appears bisected, half in shade, half illuminated. Her lipstick is red in shadow, magenta in the light.
I once heard that every painting is a solution to the problem of how to best carve light, but it is only at that moment that I finally understand what that could mean. My way of looking shifts. Every painting I’ll see from now on will bring with it, if gently, the memory of being on this train, watching the lake spread out before me, the light changing all I’d been observing. The moment is educative; it retrains my eye, refines my perceptual discernment. I see dust particles dancing, a static laid upon the scene. The passengers look lit as if by soft spotlights. I see their bodies plainly, the curves under their clothes, where their skin is smooth, their sweat, the whites of their eyes. The woman with the brilliant lipstick glances up from her book, tilts her chin to the window. The young man with the scar no longer looks so bored. He watches the lake with clear longing, as if he wished to strip himself bare and dive in. The sun penetrates our train car and I feel it, a heat on my body, and I know that the passengers can now see more of me too. The train ducks behind a grove of trees, and shadowed patterns of leaves grow across our laps. I hold my breath. I’ve never seen light carved so beautifully.
Read more in The Believer.