Deja Vu at Prismatic Spring

As I approached a hot spring three weeks ago, I was startled by the colours of the earth surrounding the saphire, sulphurous water. The closer I came to spring, the stronger the sensation became that this was a walk I'd made before. It was the merest, teasing memory, yet I knew it was not the first time I'd seen this water surrounded by terra-cotta orange, ferous earth. Maddening. Yet where had I seen this place that felt so alien, yet so familiar, I kept asking myself? Then bam, I retrieved finally the source of familiarity. Unnumbered years ago, I was looking at a book of photographs. I saw one which charmed me completely: Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone. I even remember how the photographer layed out the shot, from another angle than those I was about to take. I had found the photograph entrancing, returning again and again to the same page picturing a luminous, mysterious body of water: Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone.

Where did I get that book? I still wonder. Who did the book belong to? I do not know. Why did I have it and where is it now? I draw a blank. Was I in a library, sitting on the floor of a bookstore, looking through a coffee table book at a friend's house, rifling the shelves of the coffee room at the undergraduate Lit/Lang building...? I don't know. What else was in the book? I don't remember that. I only remember the fascination I felt for the single photograph. All I still remember, even after three weeks of trying, is that 10-15 years ago, I saw Prismatic Spring, Yellowstone in a book of photographs and loved it. Coming upon it again this way--by accident--felt like seeing the familiar face of a loved one in a crowd of strangers, decades after you last saw them. It felt like stumbling upon a joy I'd forgotten and suddenly grieved for.

What else do we lose, what joys do we forget, what images that once entranced us and gave us joy do we let slide away without ever acting on them? I was so lucky that day in Yellowstone--to find a simple pleasure that gave me joy so long ago, recovered, accidentally, on the way to somewhere else.