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| Yes, I did have to run up behind them to get this shot |
I will get outside every day and mindfully watch the sunset.
“Never waste any amount of time doing anything important when
there is a sunset outside that you should be sitting under!”
- C.
JoyBell C.
Why
This month is a companion to last month’s
sunrise every day challenge – pausing to go outside and take notice of a simple
daily event. The only real
“challenge” was to mindfully plan for it in advance, or as I figured out, use
the handy trick of setting an alarm on my smart phone for about ten minutes
before sunset to remind me to get out there - it worked!
Why did I pick such an easy focus for this
month, even easier than getting up for the sunrise? Planning on (and definitely experiencing) a very busy work
month was the main reason. It only
takes a short amount of time, and actually slowing down to get outside at the
end of the day and close out (most of) the work from my brain helped me
appreciate these moments even more than usual. I am lucky to live a few blocks from the beach and like last
month, this is where I traveled to watch the show most evenings.
How it went
Yes Virginia, there is a green flash…and I saw four of them this month,
including two on consecutive nights! This October happened to be a perfect month for this
challenge, with exceptionally warm weather so it was truly pleasant to be
outside at dusk each night, and the clear conditions most nights made for some
good photo opps, mentally or digitally.
Planning my schedule around the sunset was
fairly easy, but I did miss a few of them - two nights I simply forgot (didn’t
start using the alarm idea until halfway through the month) while I was
involved in something else, and two nights I abandoned it purposefully due to
fog. The sun was obviously going
down through the fog, but there would be no show - no great change of light and
color and texture which had accompanied most of the other evenings. I didn’t bother going to see the wall
of pure gray out over the ocean, if I could have even seen the ocean from the
strand.
The People
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| Front row seats |
Like the morning people last month, I noticed
the evening people. The regulars
who were out walking their dog, or enjoying their glass of wine on the deck, or
sprinting across the sand, board tucked underarm, to catch a few refreshing
waves before dark. Fewer of them
were working out like the morning people, but they definitely had their
routines. I saw many of these
sunsetters from my usual perch on one of the two benches at the end of my street. Once I overheard a father
telling his son “Look isn’t that pretty, the sun is about to evaporate into the
ocean.” The 5 or 6 year old
urgently replied, “What does evaporate mean?” Which took the father some time to explain, and I think he
actually regretted his word choice.
I giggled to myself listening to their conversation for the next five
minutes.
A few times I walked while the show was going
on, and noticed how so many tourists (lots of German, French, and Japanese
these days) captured the moment with their devices, and it reinforced my appreciation
for living in such a beautiful area where I could watch the often idyllic scene
unfold just about anytime I desired.
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| A sunset with the other half in Kauai (not this month) |
Almost half the time my other half joined me,
and the ritual became a great way for us to connect together at the end of our
day. My favorite was in Cambria,
where we celebrated ten years together at the Moonstone Beach Bar and Grill, sitting at the railing table outside where we could
both face west and watch the sun melt slowly into the calm central coast sea,
while enjoying a great meal - highly recommended experience.
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| Local youngsters |
It was also fun to randomly run into people we know at
sunset, like on the pier the first night when the director of the Roundhouse Aquarium, and his family opened the cooler
in the back of their truck and showed us what they had collected on their dive
that day – baby halibut and lobster – very cool little creatures I had never seen this size before.
What I learned
Overall, the (almost) full month of sunsets
was another good exercise in slowing down and taking time to enjoy the beauty
of nature outside every day. The
most rewarding days were when I was actually walking on the beach at water’s
edge listening to the gulls and terns, and waves, and watching the light
change, the moonrise, and the tide coming back in, along with the main show of
course. It’s calming, and
rewarding, and well worth it to carve this sort of time out of our busy days,
don’t you think? Can you make a
point to do more of this? I’m
going to try...