Fog is a cloud that hugs the ground and simplifies our chaotic world.
“Sometimes we need the fog to remind ourselves that all of life is not black and white,” wrote Jonathan Lockwood Huie, known as the “Philosopher of Happiness.”
Try not to look at fog as just gray and depressing. When fog happens, beauty and wonder often appear.
In this photograph, a lone seagull soars past Corita Kent’s “Rainbow Swash.” The artwork, adorning the 146-foot tall natural gas tank, is a Dorchester landmark. When it was originally painted in 1971, it was the largest commissioned work of art in the world. It was also controversial, because Vietnam veterans and others thought they detected the profile of Ho Chi Minh in the blue stroke.
Kent a former nun and antiwar activist, denied that it was the former North Vietnam leader. The pop artist called her work “a joyous expression, joining heaven and earth together.”
The gas tank in the fog bank is a soothing intermission from the world surrounding it. The fog obscures the nearby jagged razor wire fences, solar panels, ugly Southeast Expressway traffic, and the parade of jets descending toward Logan Airport.
The French artist Henri Matisse might have enjoyed the rainbow splashes of color that brighten the monotone day. Fog is fun to photograph.
“Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us,” Matisse once said.
Perhaps we should all appreciate fog for what it is: A big hug from Mother Nature.
Stan Grossfeld can be reached at stanley.grossfeld@globe.com.