Chasing Sunsets & Serenity
I took this one right near the ghost town called Goldfield, right by the Circle C stables, in front of the Superstition Mountains, among the saguaros that swarm Pinal County, within Lost Dutchman State Park. You see, there's a whole lot to see in a little town few have heard about.
Did you know that Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Saving Time? With the exception of the Navajo Nation in northeastern AZ, the rest of the Grand Canyon State hasn't adjusted their clocks for decades. Are you as taken back as I was when I first learned that? The main reason they choose not to participate is that they don't want any more daylight than they already get. With summer temperatures soaring into the triple digits, nightfall brings a much-needed cool down for desert dwellers.
Like most Arizonans, I've spent so much of my life chasing sunsets. But for me, it's less out of desperation for a drastic temperature drop and more out of longing to witness a beautiful moment and hold onto it for as long as humanly possible. Have you ever eaten so fast that you barely tasted your food? There've been times I've watched the sunset so intently, I realize now, that I was trying desperately to capture the fleeting moment with my mind and my camera for eternity. Perhaps so much that I wasn't letting myself fully experience it. Kind of like when you glance around the arena at a concert and notice that almost everyone is watching the performance through the screens of their handheld devices. Sometimes cell phones and iPads block the natural reception to what's happening right before our eyes. And I'm guilty of doing this too. I think it comes from a place of wanting to hold on to the good feeling forever, wanting to bottle up a memory so we can replay it again and again whenever we want. We want our hugs to last a little longer, our flowers to flourish for more than a week's time, we wish the sunset would keep the sky painted for hours on end.
Maybe, we can appreciate those things even more by respecting their transience. Accepting, appreciating, and releasing, rather than grasping at the butterfly and trying to force it to stay. But even as I type that I'm reminded of how I wish I'd taken more pictures on my trip through Death Valley National Park, wish I'd purchased a pin or some other tchotchke to commemorate a fantastic excursion. Maybe it's about finding some balance between recording Elton John's entire performance and capturing a few memorable moments while still living them in real time.
The day I took this photo, the sun was setting later than usual in Apache Junction, Arizona. Standing on the sands of Lost Dutchman State Park, I took pictures as day evolved into night 'till my phone wouldn't let me take any more. I had a dead external charger in my pocket, my cell phone's battery was down to 1%, and I was contemplating going back to the car for my spare. "I should just run and grab it quick," I thought. I didn't want to miss capturing the best parts of the sunset. Plus, I needed it, 'cause how would I get back to my car after the sun disappeared? What would light my way back to the parking lot? And what if I got lost and couldn't find my way? That's when my phone died, and my mind quieted, and I just decided to be.
I perched myself atop a round-topped rock and watched the sun descend over the cacti, sending color ricocheting in every direction across the bright night sky. Just for a few minutes. Seven or eight tops. But in those brief, but precious moments, I found peace and beauty that I was able to accept and release. And the fiercely full moon illuminated the trail back to the fluorescent fixtures watching over my lone car.