Chasing Sunsets
#6 in the series of non-religious Sunday posts
"Don't forget: beautiful sunsets need cloudy skies.” —Paulo Coelho
I have been more than slightly obsessed with sunsets since my college days. During my senior year, I was fortunate enough to have an ocean view from my dorm room. I would always leave the dining hall in time to watch the sunset over the ocean—and take pictures. The cloudy—but not too cloudy—days were the best.
The pictures never lived up to the reality, but they were a reminder that even difficult days can end with a beautiful sunset. Colorado sunsets were also remarkable! It was a sobering truth that the most beautiful sunsets were often the result of fires when the smoke blew in from near and far.
“Sunsets are proof that no matter what happens, every day can end beautifully.”
—Kristen Butler—
My husband and I often chase the sun to Puget Sound where I can slow down and await the perfect sunset moment. Waiting for a sunset calms my soul.
"When your world moves too fast,
and you lose yourself in the chaos, introduce yourself to each color of the sunset.”
—Christy Ann Martine—
“The strange thing about the sunset is that we actually don't want the sun to set. We want it to stay right on the horizon - not below it, not above it - just right on it.”
—Mehmet Murat ildan—
That magic setting moment is not the only beauty of sunsets. In Colorado, the sun would set behind Pikes Peak. Not so for Mt. Rainier! Instead, the clouds and mountains glow with the rays of the setting sun. It would be easy to miss this while only looking toward the sun!
There are also remarkable sunsets when the sun sinks below the horizon or is never actually visible because of cloud cover. This is often true along the Oregon and California coastline. The sunset explodes when it vanishes below the horizon! (I sometimes think about this concerning authors or other artists whose work only becomes popular after their death—but we needn’t go there, right?)
Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset, and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.”
—Ryu Murakami
There are probably not enough days in my life to see all the sunsets that I long to see. This quote amuses me because given another life, I would pursue more sunsets as a primary objective. I leave you with pictures of the day we chased the sunset across the continent on a flight from Atlanta to Seattle. We were just in time to see the sunset!
Go chase a sunset today!