There was once a painter who wandered through places where no paths are written, in search of the perfect light.
One day, a ray broke through the clouds and spread like a fan over the distant hills. Beneath that light, everything took on new life.
The painter was captivated by that sky, but when he tried to paint it, the light went out.
He returned to the same place day after day. At the same hour and at its opposite. Other lights came, but none like the first.
He dreamed of it, asleep and awake. Without it, every landscape seemed to him sad. He walked other roads and still the light slipped away.
On one of those days, the light appeared between the trees. The painter pressed the shutter of his camera, but the camera could not catch it.
He tried to paint it from memory. He could see it when he closed his eyes, but when he opened them, darkness would undo his imagination.
The light was the source from which everything flowed, and it could not be held. It lay behind every tremor, hidden and visible at once. Beneath it, small things shone like jewels. Great things stretched into infinity.
In his search, the painter left his home behind and saw the most beautiful landscapes in the world. He crossed deserts, seas, and jungles. Everywhere the light was different and yet always the same. He passed through immense cities and saw it reflected in the eyes of those who lived there. He climbed the highest mountains, but the light dwelt much higher still.
How many things the painter saw! Led by the light, he could come to no harm. Sometimes he would sigh:
“If I could capture it with my brushes, I would have the most beautiful painting in the world.”
And so the years passed, and his hair turned white. His back grew stooped and his hand began to tremble. Yet his paintings grew more luminous with every passing day.
Then one day his sight clouded, and he could no longer see. Everyone wanted to console him, not knowing that the painter carried in his memory as many landscapes as days he had lived. And in every one of them, the light was present.
He no longer needed to chase it. The light was with him always. It was enough to sit serenely beneath the open sky of each new day.
It was in this way that the painter found the light, and never lost it again.