A memory

Our family was coming back from Japan on the SS Sultan. My dad, a Marine, had served an accompanied tour over there, and now we were coming home.

On the last day of the voyage, we got up early to pack up the last of our stuff, then went out onto the deck. The foghorn was blowing, the ship plowing through a calm sea, barely rolling. Fog made it white in every direction.

Then the sun, a great disk, rose, hanging in the sky like an enormous glowing orange, at least twice as big as a sun should be.

The foghorn blew, the gulls cried. We tasted the salty fog, lost in a vast world of black and silver sea, white fog, and a huge orange sun.

Then, out of nothing, a giant bridge appeared, orange like the sun: the Golden Gate.

It was such a perfect moment. I have never forgotten it: the orange sun and the great bridge, the salt tang in the air, the hoots of the foghorn, the screams of the gulls, the vibration and slight sway of the ship.

Whenever I see anything beautiful, I compare it with that.