Fleeting Lights

finding hope when all feels lost

Pictured: Prospect Park on fire as New York City hasn’t had rain in over 6 weeks.

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

— Leonard Cohen, Anthem, The Future (1992)

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

— Rumi (attributed)

It’s November 6, and it’s unnervingly warm in New York City—78 degrees in November, the kind of climate anomaly that feels like an alarm you can’t turn off. I am wearing a light chore jacket that is too heavy for the weather. I walk through the West Village, breakfast sandwich from Murray’s in hand: egg, bacon, sausage on an everything bagel with a latke on top, my little indulgence. The ultimate comfort food for a day that feels anything but comfortable.

I find a spot on a bench in Washington Square Park and not long after a homeless trans woman, Aisha, approaches, eyeing my sandwich. She’s not afraid, pointing at it and asking if she can have half. As I hand it to her, she chuckles, calling it “hearty.” She looks thin, wrapped in a worn, dirty bedsheet, her toe peeking through a battered shoe.

She glances up at me and asks, “Who won?”

“Oh… it’s Trump,” I say, feeling the words land with a thud.

She just shrugs, a half-smile forming as she says, “We had a good time with Trump, didn’t we?” And I laugh—not because it’s funny, but because it feels like the only appropriate response. Her reaction feels more honest than anything I see on the news.

For a moment, I wonder if this could seem like one of those Twitter threads, the ones where people spin an over-the-top story for engagement. How their seven-year-old told them Ruthkanda forever or some such nonsense when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. But as I look at Aisha—someone for whom this election means little, because she’s on the street either way—I know it’s real. I think of the clients I’ve represented, so many of whom are ineligible to vote or just don’t; the largest voting bloc, after all, has always been the nonvoters. It’s people like Aisha, left out of these cycles, still here when the results are tallied and forgotten.

Pictured: One of the greatest made up posts of all time.

I look at the leaves, their colors intensified by the bright November sun. Aisha is gone, but I find myself lingering on the shifting light filtering through the trees, watching as it flickers across the ground. The Japanese call it komorebi—the dappled light that slips through leaves, fractured but warm, softening even the hardest shadows. It feels delicate, like something you can’t hold onto but can only witness as it appears.

Komorebi

木漏れ日

(pronounced kō-mō-reh-bē)

This week, I rewatched Perfect Days, a film that captures a similar kind of beauty that’s hard to describe—the kind that exists in small, quiet moments. The film is written up as follows:

Hirayama feels content with his life as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. Outside of his structured routine, he cherishes music on cassette tapes, reads books and takes photos. Through unexpected encounters, he reflects on finding beauty in the world.

Pictured: Hirayama entering the toilet to clean in Perfect Days

In addition to cleaning toilets, Hirayama uses his free time to care for his plants that he forages from trees in parks and takes a photograph, every single day, of the light playing through the leaves. Watching the film again, I find myself thinking about how komorebi reflects an elusive beauty—a kind of light that doesn’t call attention to itself, that doesn’t need to be chased or captured. It’s just there, waiting for you to notice. And maybe that’s why it feels so grounding on a day like today, where I find myself sitting in the park watching the trees, letting it settle around me.

But komorebi isn’t just light; it’s the dance of shadows and light that appears only when certain things align: the leaves, the branches, the angle of the sun. It’s both fleeting and timeless, like a whisper from nature reminding us of life’s quieter, often-overlooked moments. There’s no single word for it in English—it’s not just “sunlight” or “shade” but something in between, an effect, an atmosphere, a feeling of softness and calm.

I think about how life often gives us these fleeting moments, unplanned and unexpected, especially on days like this one when the world feels on edge. A gentle reminder from the universe about impermanence. So many of the moments we experience in life are defined by their ephemerality. They exist only in that specific configuration of time, place, and perspective, and we have to be present to notice them or else miss them entirely.

I think about how rarely we pause to appreciate these moments, especially in a world where there’s always another piece of news, another problem pulling our attention away. Yet it’s these quiet, subtle encounters with beauty—watching light filter through the trees, laughing with a stranger, sharing a meal—that seem to linger in memory. They’re the moments that show us, quietly and without fanfare, that beauty doesn’t need to be monumental or permanent to matter. It’s often these small things that ground us when everything else feels uncertain.

The warmth in the air feels unseasonable and alarming, a warning of bleak realities and futures. But there I am, drawn into this light, letting it calm me. In the grand scheme of things, it may be insignificant—a blip in a vast and complex universe. But maybe that’s precisely why it matters: in a chaotic and overwhelming world, it offers a brief moment of clarity.

After I’d spent the afternoon in the park finding some comfort in the speckled light, I met my partner at a small French restaurant in the Village. We’d never been there together before; it was a cozy, intimate spot with exposed brick walls, a fireplace, and an ambiance that felt warm and inviting. The old French owner made rounds to each table, nudging us to buy more wine, his insistence cheerful and unassuming. “Ah, you will speak French after more wine.” There was a sweetness to it all, the place enveloping us in a way that felt surreal, as if it were sheltering us from the reality outside.

Over dinner, she told me she’d be moving out before the end of the month. I knew already she was leaving, but now we had an actual date. And as if to mirror the transience of this moment, I learned that this restaurant would be closing soon too. “Well, you’ll have something to write about, at least,” she laughed.

That night, as I tried to piece together my thoughts, I wrote down fragments, small efforts to make sense of it all:

All of these days rolled up into one long day, bleeding together, one seamlessly into the next, laboriously, almost boring, blending into nothing.

When I look at her sleep, her face shifts in the darkness, taking on new shapes that feel foreign. There’s a kind of static to the darkness, and I find myself watching it dance across her features, unable to tell if she’s frowning, crying, or just lying there, motionless and expressionless. I want to reach out, to find some anchor in the slipping sense of reality, but I don’t.

You hold me as the tears well up, push me close against your breast, my face smushed, tasting metal in my mouth. I try to withhold the tears.

I clung to her, tasting salt and metal, knowing this wasn’t something I could hold onto much longer. It’s strange how presence can linger so strongly.

I see you sitting on the couch in your familiar place, but you are not there. I am standing in the kitchen where I once smiled at you.

I realize—painfully—that I cannot ask her to stay. I feel it would be wrong, a betrayal of some unspoken understanding we both share. The words would feel insincere, as if I were asking out of desperation rather than truth. I cannot ask you to stay. I will not ask you to do that. I feel like the words would leave my lips wrong, hollow, empty. That immediately you would know it was not true. But I do need you here, and it hurts me so badly that you are leaving.

I think this feeling is something different than komorebi: it’s quite sadder, more pressing. I often find myself experiencing these little heartbreaks, a kind of awareness of the serendipity and sadness of life. It’s an inescapable and indescribable sadness that can create a deep sense of melancholy, one that is not longing but rather an awareness of grief. There’s not really a perfect word for it in English. In searching for it I stumble upon saudade, a Portuguese word that carries a meaning close to nostalgia, but with a unique depth: it’s a blend of melancholy, yearning, and a gentle sorrow for something that feels both close and far, a presence felt through its absence. But even that is not quite what I mean.

The next night, we go to Rockwood Music Hall on the Lower East Side, knowing it would be our last time there together. The place has become my quiet obsession over the past few years; I find myself slipping into the back at these tiny shows, watching unknown musicians play to rooms of family and friends. There’s something special about being the only person in the crowd they don’t know, like I could be the sign of their big break or somehow signify they are really making music happen.

At 5 PM, there’s no one else there for the opener, just us and guy in a baseball cap named David DiNiro. He smiles, tuning his guitar, and out of nowhere, he says, (I swear to god) “There’s this word in Portuguese…” And he says it: saudade. It feels like some impossible coincidence—this word I’d been thinking about all day, suddenly brought to life right here, in this empty room, just us and David. He explains it and we laugh, not fully understanding the providence of life and this moment.

He starts playing 1979 by the Smashing Pumpkins, and as he sings, each line hits as if being sang (and quite literally it is being sang) just for us:

And I don't even care
To shake these zipper blues
And we don't know
Just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed into the earth
Below

The words and the music and the room all blend into one, like a memory we’re already longing for even as it’s still happening. When David finishes, there’s a moment of silence. He looks over and says, “Thanks for sticking around,” and his smile carries that same sense of farewell.

Pictured: David playing 1979. Check him out on Spotify

It’s strange how life’s moments of beauty and heartbreak often seem to arrive side by side, as if one cannot exist without the other. There’s a certain courage, I think, in accepting these moments for what they are—temporary, fleeting, fragile. For both the good and the bad. Perhaps that’s what komorebi is really about—a way of finding peace in the knowledge that some things are not meant to last. There’s something comforting in that.

I find myself lingering on this thought: the only thing we can do is look for the light that finds its way through, however fleeting it may be, and hold onto the memory of it as we move forward.