The chance to be here and not here

There is this strange light that has been making an appearance only at the very end of an otherwise gray day. I suppose the light itself isn't strange -- it's the sun -- but seeing the orange glow on the buildings across the street was so unexpected both times it felt to me like a kind of apparitional experience. Here I was coming in with the groceries, feeling much more exhausted this pregnancy than last, the neighbor upstairs was tapping out on the piano a very slow and deliberate version of Ode to Joy, and I think -- the day is coming to a close now, there is a sort of surrender, a relinquishing of further possibilities, a preparation for rest -- but then I glance out the window and the sudden Edward Hopper light contradicts that.