Tag: sunset

Home again.  Many memories.  The other night I swam out into the cove and floated on my back watching the sun disappear behind the headlands. (Yes, shoes were mandatory because of the boulder-strewn bottom and tricky entry over wet rock).

Anyhow, I was floating with the last rays of the sun on one side of my face, and if I turned around the moon was already above the horizon.   I was drifting along in six feet of water, aware that 60 feet to my right it dropped to 330 feet, instantly. So many dualities. Light/dark, cold/warm, deep/shallow, sun and moon, all at once.

When I was a child, cars had nice big bench-style backseats and little boys were allowed to stretch out on them for the ride home from some special occasion.

A memory:   I must have been three or four.  I recall the sinking sun framed by the car window as it moved through orange to red.  Pressed against the cushioned upholstery my ears were filled with the rushing sound of wheels and pavement and air. 

I became aware.  It seemed to me that I was at once in the car, and a part of it. All was in motion -the wheels, the thrumming sound, the light as it melted from straw to deep blue. The sun itself descended the glass before my eyes -slowly but discernibly.

But in the very center of all this motion there was stillness. Time, distance, light, sound, day and night were moving at once. Beyond my control – and at the same time I could hold them all captive, instant by instant, inside me.