SPACE FOR YOUR IMAGE DESCRIPTION OR TITLE

SPACE FOR YOUR IMAGE DESCRIPTION OR TITLE

Manifesto Monday: dusk

6.22.2009

photo by me. south beach, inverness. summer solstice.
for years i used to wake up easily at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m.

i thought of myself as a morning person. these days i no longer wake up much earlier than the sun does, though, in some ways, i still believe i am a morning person.

last night i realized that i am a dusk person as well. we watched the sun set beneath the waters of the ocean...the last people on the continent to see the end of day. all alone. once we saw the sun set we savored a few more moments on the beach before we slowly moved back into our car. we had a long drive home ahead of us.

as we drove i felt at rest in the light of dusk. it is a slow time, a contemplative time. dusk tells me it is okay to breathe, to observe, and to listen. slow.

what is it about the coming of darkness that is oh so beautiful to me? i have yet to put my finger on it. is it the defused lighting? is it the first sightings of night stars? is it the cosiness of nearing bedtime? whatever it is, i welcome it.

often we are attracted to the metaphor of a sunrise...that we get to begin anew. it is indeed a good metaphor. but, i too am attracted to the coming of night, to darkness. when everything is quiet and still. there are a few things to see: stars, perhaps the moon, and what is immediately in front of you. and there is something that is quite relaxing about not seeing much else. your ears hear more, you taste the air more accutely, and you feel the slight breeze or stillness of air. perhaps we are truly more aware when we are not overstimulated by sights. night is simple.

dusk rolls in the night, and rolls in calm. now, after the solstice, the days grow darker. and that is a good thing too. this i believe.

2 comments:

Brandi said...

I tend to consider myself a morning person as well, but I've never been able to rise at 5am without the aid of an alarm clock. Such natural tendencies don't happen for me until about 6 or 6:30am.

But I agree with you about the dusk -- it's such a beautiful, magical time. I guess in many ways, it's like the dawn that we witness in the morning. It's a period of transition, where you walk between two worlds. The landscape changes.

CJ said...

This may sound cheesy, BUT, dusk is awesome to me because it is a symbol of places to go. A sunset is a symbol that the future is beautiful if you follow it--the sun. A sunset is proof of hope in the future. Horizons are the future--you walk all day to get there only to look ahead and see a new expanse before you. The sun setting, lighting the way and still showing the beauty of it and that represents hope.