Driving the two-lane is a good way to think. Especially if you have been conducting business all day by phone and by Internet, worshiping at the feet of Plutus by wire and by satellite.A shower and a clean shirt order the mind. And when you pull out between the hemlocks and pick up speed on the hard road, casting a long, fast shadow over the reviving land, the piebald hills streaming past you on either side, it feels celebratory.
You pop a CD into the player, and scene after scene plays out around you in the low, strong light to the thumping groove of The Kings of Leon, the soaring tenor, the brave chorus, the youthful American angst. Life is good with spring so near, even sweet, as you glide the 15 miles into town in a flow without interruption, one of the blessings of rural living.
The sun has dropped behind the ridge, and the icy lights of the resort bristle on the darkening slope. But here along the state road, fields and woods, houses and the barns that remain are awash in a golden glow. Two pairs of ducks head north in silhouette, a parallelogram of fluttering tenpins against Wedgewood blue. Neighbors neaten their yards, picking up windfall and carrying it to the fire, a good time to burn now, with the ground still wet and last year's leaves just beginning to lift. Plumes of smoke rise in the cool calm of Daylight Saved, standing on the landscape like giant seahorses with their tails in a circle of stones and their heads in the sky.
No matter how many times we see it, sundown always fills us with wonder. Even a dying man, it is said, will admire the beauty of sunset, perhaps having all the more reason to do so.
Yes, we are one sunset closer to our last. But there is this one, and we are in it, driving through it on our way to town, and to good company, and a warm meal, and a few pleasant, sunstruck faces we know well, all the more grateful for being.
copyright 2010 by J. O'Brien, all rights reserved
