In the glow of sunset 30 April 2009

I have to say, sunset and the moments just afterward have to be my favorite time of day.  Anyone who knows me realizes that I am in no way, shape, or form a morning person.  While I’m not nearly as bad as my college roommate (she would literally growl at you if you spoke to her before she was fully awake), I’m still not a fun person to be around first thing in the morning.

I’ve always been drawn to sunsets, I guess because I don’t see many sunrises.  There was one time, however….  I was fifteen, spending a few weeks with my real mom when she still lived in the condo in Ocean View.  The beach was just steps away from her door, and I spent many, many happy hours in the sand, reading.  One night, and I can’t remember why, my real mom and I stayed up all night long.  She finally pooped out sometime in the early morning hours, and I decided it was time to take a walk along the beach.  I watched the sun come up all by myself, and I loved every moment of it.  I had my little 110 camera on me, the one that didn’t even have a built-in flash, that my parents had bought me when I was ten years old.  I had to use flash bars in low light — remember those?  Surprisingly enough, I took some really lovely photos of the sunrise with it.  I think that was the first time I was impressed by something I had shot myself.

I still have the print in one of my albums.  I should scan it in.

We get some really lovely sunsets here in Rhode Island, but I’m not situated well to take advantage of them, photographically.  And there are only so many photos you can take of the same ol’ scenery here on the island.  I’d have to really plan ahead to get a great shot of a sunset that didn’t include a location I’ve already shot a million times before, and planning isn’t usually something I’m very good at.

But we get this wonderful glow here in the house come springtime when the sun gets low enough in the sky.  That’s where the lighting for the photo above came from, the sunset streaming in my back windows.

To me, sunset is a time to enjoy a few quiet moments.  The day is over, the stress of one’s job is over (one would hope), and the restful night is right around the corner.  In the summertime it means relief from the scorching heat.  It’s a time to sit back, enjoy a lovely dinner, and relax.  The beauty that comes along with a sunset is just a bonus.

The only thing that’s better than a sunset is the twilight that comes next.  It’s the absolute most beautiful time of day for me, that time where you can still see by the fading rays of the sun, but the lights have come on.  There seems to be an aura around every light source, and the colors simply pop out at you.  Even something so mundane as a traffic light takes on an ethereal beauty at this time of day.  I guess, if you’re a morning person, it would be the moments before the dawn.

I just looked up “twilight” over on Wikipedia to make sure I was using the right word, and now I know why I love this time of day so much.  Wikipedia points out that “Due to the unusual, romantic quality of the ambient light at this time, twilight has long been popular with photographers and painters, who refer to it as the ‘blue hour’ or ‘sweet light‘, after the French expression l’heure bleue.”  Sure enough, there’s a morning twilight as well.  I don’t see myself getting up early enough to take advantage of it, however.  I’m much more likely to see it because I haven’t been to bed yet.

Speaking of going to bed late, I’ve been a naughty girl all this week.  I’m reading the sixth book in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, a novel titled A Breath of Snow and Ashes.  How I love Gabaldon, and I highly recommend her Outlander series to anyone who enjoys a good read.  She’s sometimes shelved under Romance, but don’t let that put you off if you’re not usually a fan of romance.  It’s really not a romance, not your traditional trashy novel anyhow.  Granted, the books do run a little long (A Breath of Snow and Ashes is nearly 1,500 pages in mass market paperback), but the writing really sucks you into the story.  I’m running a little behind with this novel, in that Gabaldon jumps straight into the story with absolutely no trackback to her earlier novels.  In a way, that’s good; I’ve always hated the review of earlier material that tends to be the first couple of chapters of a sequel.  But I haven’t read a Gabaldon in at least three years, and probably closer to four.  I’ve been waiting two years just for A Breath of Snow and Ashes to come out in mass market paperback, the smaller paperbacks that were the only size books came in until someone came up with the bright idea of the larger trade paperbacks.  I’ve got the other five books in mass market paperback; I didn’t want to ruin my set.  Gabaldon’s coming out with the seventh book in the series this fall.  I’ll probably be waiting another two years for it to come out in mass market paperback.

And now it’s off to bed and to read some more tonight.  Maybe tonight I’ll actually turn out my light before 1am.