Before the Sun Disappears
Lately, we’ve been spending more evenings at the perch, the highest lookout on the property.
We recently pressure-washed the deck and furniture, repaired the chairs and flooring, restored the wood, fixed the shade sail, and carried a pair of large planted pots up the hill.
After all that work, it has become one of my favorite places to sit again.
There is a stretch of about ten minutes when the sun hangs like a glowing ball just above the mountains, and I find myself waiting for it each evening.
Yesterday, we brought our watercolor paints up there and stayed for a few hours as several guests eventually wandered over after yoga.
Then, just as the sun began slipping behind the ridge, the conversation stopped.
From the Week
For most of the afternoon, there had been plenty of conversation.
We painted, talked, and watched the light slowly change across the canyon.
But as the sun reached the mountains, everyone seemed to notice at once.
The chatter faded without anyone asking for silence.
I tilted the brim of my hat against the brightness and could see tiny insects moving through the golden light.
A pair of birds swept past while others called from the trees before nightfall.
The Insight
I sometimes wish that part of the sunset would last longer.
But perhaps part of its beauty is that it refuses to.
For a few minutes, something ordinary enough to happen every day becomes impossible to ignore.
No one needed to announce that the sunset deserved our attention.
Attention simply gathered around it.
And for those few minutes, there was nowhere else we needed to be.
The Practice
There are transitions happening around us all the time.
Morning becoming afternoon.
Light leaving a room.
Birds settling into the trees.
The temperature changing as evening arrives.
Choose one transition today and stay with it for a few minutes without asking it to last.
Notice what becomes visible when you know the moment is already passing.
Heard This Week
“Some moments become precious because they do not stay.”
