Sunrise, sunset

There’s something subtly melancholy about a sunset, regardless of how glorious it may be. It makes me think of the lyrics to “Taps”, that summer camp staple: “Day is done/Gone the sun”. Done and gone. There is a finality about it, a closing.

I like to think that I’m at peace with the cyclical nature of the universe, the waxing and waning, the rise and fall, the expansion and contraction. But the fact that sunsets often bring me to the verge of tears is a visceral reminder that I’m not.

Endings are hard. The end of a beautiful day, the end of a fulfilling project, the end of a relationship, the end of a life. And as I watch the sun slowly dipping below the horizon I’m acutely aware that – with the certainty that the sun will rise and set again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next – this sunset, will never return. The moment has come to an end, never to be repeated.

I just finished a huge project recently, a massive and massively complicated concert at the Hollywood Bowl. It was a huge success, a moment of joy for my own accomplishments and for the extraordinary work of my colleagues. I knew well enough to soak up as much of that moment as I could, to be truly present with it – but now, just a few weeks afterwards, I still find myself dealing with the sense of loss over a joy never to be recaptured.

I’m not sure what to do with that feeling of loss, and more often than not my response has been to try to find a way to reason myself out of it (the moment is gone but the memory will always be with me, etc etc). But lately I’ve been attempting to not think away the sadness, but to greet it like an old friend. Oh, hi. There you are. Let’s catch up.

Allowing difficult emotions to be as they are is not a natural human inclination. We want to struggle against them, vanquish them, hide them away, will them out of existence, reject the discomfort they cause. And yet the more we push, the more they push back onto us. Action, reaction.

And, really, the only way to stop that reaction is to stop taking action. For me, it has meant stopping and taking the moment to face my feeling of loss with a quiet curiosity, drawing it closer rather than pushing it away. And by truly being present in the moment as I embrace it, I realize that this complicated feeling is a part of me, part of my experience of this world, and that’s ok. I’m ok.

And, just like that, the internal conflict is stilled.

Today, in the encroaching twilight, I’m trying to relinquish the struggle, to fully encounter that disquieting finality of the waning of a day. This moment may be gone forever, but at least I’m in it right now, and that is a wonderful thing.