I have a colleague who makes it a point to watch every sunrise and sunset. I am in awe of her, but I’m also simultaneously troubled and resigned by how Herculean this feat feels, especially as an early riser who lives in a moderate climate. How hard is it to stop what you’re doing for 10-15 minutes at the beginning and end of each day and to look outside and enjoy the show that nature offers us every day?
It’s Fogust here in the Outer Richmond neighborhood in San Francisco. Sunsets and sunrises have been hard to come by. But yesterday afternoon, the skies cleared, and by evening, it was glorious. I haven’t been walking much recently, but I’ve lived in this neighborhood long enough to know that, when there’s a reprieve in the summertime dreariness, you take advantage.
At Eagles Point Overlook at the start of the trail at Lands End, there was a scattering of people taking it all in, clearly waiting for the sun to set. I wondered whether any of those folks were like my colleague, ritualistically waiting for nature to call it a day, or whether they, like me, had decided that this Monday evening was too beautiful to waste inside. I ambled along slowly, stopping often to photograph the rays of golden light wafting through the trees or to watch flocks and flocks of pelicans gliding along the Bay toward the ocean.
For the past month, the whales have been putting on a show along the coast, and I had hoped to take a peek just in case. But about two-thirds of the way there, I felt the sunset calling to me, and I decided to take a detour down the long set of stairs to Mile Rock Beach to watch nature’s clock wind down. There would be no whales there, although if I were lucky, I might catch a sea lion bobbing in the waves, checking out all the strange bipeds congregating on the shore.
I didn’t see any sea lions, but the pelicans kept coming. I felt grateful for how reliably these prehistoric birds flew along these shores in their graceful lines and V-formations, and I thought about how this wasn’t the case not so long ago. These wonderful birds never failed to mesmerize me.
Folks had gathered here too, waiting as the sky changed colors and the waves softly crashed onto the sand. I watched a group of friends amble up a large rock as the sun began to disappear. They watched in wonder, then marked the moment with some selfies.
Beyond the pelicans and a pair of oystercatchers foraging for their supper, the only other animals I saw were these other humans who had been drawn, like me, to watch this quiet spectacle. I enjoyed it. How primal it is to watch the sun go down. How easy and sad it is that we suppress this instinct.
