a camera and a little bit of time

I began a bucket list in May of 2011 and one of the things on it was to find the most beautiful sunrise and sunset in the whole world.  I found them, not once but many times.  Five years after I began, I still love to chase the sunset.  Mike and I had the chance to do that this evening just outside of Burkburnett.

I have no idea where the fascination of seeing the sun rise or set came from, only that it means so much to me to capture the image of it all.  It is especially true for me, the older that I have become.  I've been known to jump in the car without my shoes on and drive like crazy to get to an optimal vantage point before the sun completely comes up or goes down.  Most of the time it works out. Some of the time it does not.

Tonight it did.

I say that I really don't have any idea where this desire, this special yearning, comes from.  I mean really, I had gone for over 50 years of my life without wanting to photograph every rising or setting sun.  Yet the truth is, I think I do know where it came from and why it is that I feel compelled to make sure that I capture every image that is available.

I do so because it reminds me in a good way of my own inevitable mortality, and the fact that one day I will see my final sunrise or sunset.  A person really doesn't know, so why not enjoy each one we see and all of the precious time that is spent between them?

Makes sense to me.  Perhaps you feel the same.

When I was younger, I took very much for granted all the time that was given to me.  I expected it to come around, day in and day out.  I really didn't give things a thought back then.  As I grew older, the reality of the brevity of this life of ours paid me a visit.  As each passing year flew by, the keen awareness of it all became even more clear than it already was.

I grew older and even more importantly, I grew wiser.

Today at school during our monthly meeting for the "student of the month", all of the people who had celebrated birthdays in the month of October came up to the front and told their age.  When the microphone was passed down to me, I told them all that I was now 6 decades plus 1 year older.  It took them awhile to figure it out. 

They are pretty sharp.
So they did. 

Today is the 22,277th day of my life.  I pray to have many more.  If for some reason I don't, well then I am going to rejoice in all the ones that I did.  I intend to keep chasing those sunsets and taking their picture to enjoy.  It's not really an expensive hobby.  It only takes two things.

~a camera and a little bit of time~ 

Mike and I chased the sunset on Cerro Summit near our old home in Montrose, Colorado. Hard to imagine it was over 3 years ago now.