A Season for Sunsets

All week the view at 5:00 from my office window has been out of this world amazing. The blue sky melts into fiery orange, yellow and pink, with swirly streaming clouds stretching all across the bay. The mountains, city and bridge are purple silhouettes masking all the imperfections seen by day. And in front of it all the cars headlights and tail lights come on, reminding me that it's just another day coming to an end. Tonight the cloud pattern was unusually spectacular and as I pulled out of the parking garage a glimpse of the western sky showed it blood red. I drove down by the water but by then it was gone. It made me think how does one capture such an event. The first thing of course is being in the right place at the right time. But even a photo doesn't capture the vastness or vividness of the sky at sunset. Maybe that's why people paint, you can't capture something exactly so you try to create something that evokes the same feeling. It wouldn't even have to be a sunset it could be an abstraction that makes the audience gasp in delight and stare in wonder. There is no way to capture the sunset but let's hope we never stop trying.