August Twilight at Point Defiance

Every day of our lives includes twilight, an event that occurs 365 times each year and is often ignored. Then after it happens, we realize the light is gone. Every 24 hours twilight arrives, brief and silent, but with a message as clear as the cry of a gull. Are you listening? It reminds us of this request of life, one you've heard so much that it too is ignored: "Be present in the moment."

















Last Monday evening, with a profound awareness of that message, I walked along the beach at Tacoma's Point Defiance Park with three other people. We witnessed a melding of sea and sky, day and night, like I'd never seen before. The tide on that occasion was high against the bulkhead, so high it seemed we could reach out and touch the water of Puget Sound as it spread like rippled satin in shades of apricot, lavender, plum, and indigo, still touched by the distant luminosity of a sunset just missed. Our friend, so affected by the scene, almost whispered, "How do you even begin to describe this?" I've tried here, but he and the others could tell you I've failed. My best efforts can't equal the experience of "presence."

Around sunset last evening I once again craved the beach. I went down to Point Defiance with my camera, hoping to find that scene again. What I found had its own beauty, a sense of peace and tranquility and the essence of the maritime Northwest. But I can't give you what I witnessed on Monday night. Those moments are gone, except in memory, and even the best memories are less than what "now" has to offer. If I had known that fact in the past, I would have wrapped my arms around all those other pieces of what was then the present and cherished them more deeply.

The present, like the look in a person's eyes, the taste of food, a whiff of the sea, a musical harmony, a gentle touch, and especially the company of beloved souls, must be savored with gratitude during that very second. What have you missed already, that will never come again? Have you ever tried to hang on to the sound of a loved one's voice after they are gone? Did you ever wish for just a few more seconds during an embrace, or a snippet of time from a long ago childhood? These things all slip away.

August enters it's last phase and we notice the days getting shorter. Tonight, when twilight returns, as brief and silent as always, just be still and think about what it symbolizes. These moments are your life and tomorrow's memories. Don't forget to pay attention.

Copyright 2010 Candace J. Brown

A Week of Sunsets, Change, and Singing the Blues

Sunsets are like Blues music. They move us with the same poignant beauty, born of loss. Whether the loss is a love, a dream, a life, or just a day in a life, both share the message that time passes and change comes. The last rays tinge the clouds with color, and our hearts with a brief and secret sadness, made of memory, nostalgia, opportunities missed and goals still unmet.

I am, by my nature, too joyful to dwell on the moment of sadness. I simply acknowledge, accept, and honor it as part of life. We seek balance, anchoring ourselves in these truths. Pain and pleasure, warmth and cold, light and dark, elation and despair, youth and age, each enhance our keen awareness of the other. No matter what I'm doing, or where I am, I try to watch the sun go down. Through this small private ritual I remember to appreciate my life and make each day count.

Last night I came across this photo I took of a sunset a few weeks ago, looking west from Tacoma near the Narrows Bridge. It could be anywhere. The same fire in the sky could have been reflected in your eyes. The same black silhouettes of trees could be your trees, to which the birds you heard in your own yard this morning withdrew and withheld their mysterious songs. We've all seen the brilliance and then the fading light.

Some weeks I hurry, busy with things I believe are important. On other weeks unexpected speed bumps cause me to slow down and take notice. This past week was one of those and held plenty of signs of coming change, some welcome, some not. Spring bulbs are blooming. We took some "cool" antiques to a swap meet, but realized a new generation had little interest. We talked to our grandson in Colorado by live video, on Skype, and wondered what a toddler thinks about that. We went to a gathering and noticed how people had aged. Our garden shrubs began to bud. A friend flew home because her mother is dying. The stock market went up. The historic fishing schooner WAWONA, built in 1897, was completely demolished, her elegant form and testimony to craftsmanship ending up in dumpsters. And the Seattle Post Intelligencer printed its last real paper after 146 years of dispersing the news on everything from war to who won the high school football game. Its reporters witnessed and recorded our lives and all things considered important through many generations. We will miss the old familiar smell of ink and newsprint, the rustling sound, the feel of it in our hands on Sunday morning, where it went so well with the buttered toast and steaming coffee and quiet start to the day. And WAWONA is gone forever.

We can no more stop change than we can stop the sun from rising up and going down. A few weeks ago friend expressed the hope of seeing many more sunrises and sunsets, each with its own poignancy and promise. I hope that too. I hope to be humbled and inspired by the beauty and meaning in every single one even though I know, glorious as they are, they will sometimes feel like I'm singing the Blues.