The Evening Muse

So I took a walk this evening just before sunset, as I so often do on weeks without my son. And I suppose it was just a little more poignant than usual, what with this COVID-19 virus going around and all of us under orders to shelter at home. But no, I wasn't evading these orders, as we're certainly even now encouraged to go for walks, to get fresh air. We jjust have to stay away from other people (at least 6 feet!). As a professional introvert, this isn't even a challenge.

But anyway, it was a cool and windy day with bursts of light rain here and there, which further helped to keep people locked up indoors I suppose. When I did this walk earlier today it was like being in the TV show The Last Man on Earth, which ironically enough was about a virus that wiped out most of the human race. But in the first couple of episodes, the star would wander around city streets which now appeared abandoned and wholly devoid of life. Yeah, it was kind of like that. But every once in awhile a car would rumble past and awaken my wistful reverie, and remind me that we haven't gotten THAT bad. Yet.

In any case, this evening the sun was busy setting and painting the sky in a vast landscape of colors, as it often does. As is often the case, the colors change and morph so frequently, becoming ever and ever more majestic and brilliant, that each time you glance up it is a whole new painting, seemingly more glorious than before. But each scene only lasts a brief moment, before passing on, and eventually it winds down into something dark and mysterious as the sun inevitably drops below the horizon. You almost never know what the peak, the most beautiful and awe-inspiring moment, will be, until it has passed. And then it only exists in memory. But I may have caught it tonight, however clumsy it may appear being taken with just a cell phone.

For me, anyway, the sunset inspires deep thought and reflection. A friend of mine posited a question on Facebook today about whether we tend to pray, or meditate, or do both. I responded that I do neither; rather I go for walks and contemplate life. Tonight's series of paintings provided the perfect environment for that. I suppose one could argue that it is after all a form of meditation. Maybe so; but I fear I'm not worthy enough to judge it in that regard. What I will say is this: the sunset can be seen as something as a metaphor for life. It starts off slow and builds to a series of climaxes, ever changing, while simultaneously retaining the capacity for both the extraordinary and the dismally gloomy. The mysterious. The unknown. The life of the sunset passes by in moments. While in our life, hours may pass slowly, but the hours turn into days and the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into years. And then the years turn to decades. And before you know it, you're at the sunset - the twilight - of your life. Well, I'm not quite there yet. At least, I hope not. Who can say? In any case, life is passing us by pretty quickly, and looking back at all of those years it's hard to believe just how much time has passed by. Like the ever-changing sunset, the paintings of the past exist only in memory now.

So what does all this mean? I don't know. Maybe it means nothing. More likely I am just not worthy enough to figure that one out. Or maybe I did, long ago, and never really realized it. Who can say? But it's past 8:00pm now, and the passage of time continues slowly but under a shroud of darkness. And before you know it, a new day will dawn upon us. Guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens then. Am I too much of an observer?? Quite possibly. Something to ponder at a later time, or perhaps over another sunset.