MY VIEW
Lovely sunset eases meddlesome worries
Updated: 09/14/08 6:48 AM
Each morning when I awaken my slumbering iMac, the magnificence of a Lake Ontario sunset spreads across the 24-inch monitor. It is a photo that I took on a recent summer night, when threatening storm clouds cluttered the sky, breaking just in time for the retiring sun to throw bright rays into the atmosphere.
The resulting compendium of color is breathtaking. Mounds of cobalt cumulous are bifurcated with purple, red and orange-tinted billow clouds and back-lighted golden stratus fractus. The busy hues are so intense that there was no need to adjust contrast or saturation; the photo is just as the camera captured it.
It has become the practice, nearly every night, of my best friend and I to take the short drive to Pier 425 in the Village of Wilson, near where he lives. We come armed with cameras and, sometimes, Niagara Trail wine.
Occasionally we are accompanied by my 13-year-old son, who makes it his mission to throw as many pebbles into the water as he can, seemingly attempting to fill the lake. Every time we are there we comment on how each sunset is different than the one before; how each solar show at the waning of day is unique to itself, never to be duplicated.
Pier 425 has become our favored haven. This place of peace is where my friend scattered his late wife’s ashes and vowed to be happy again, just as she would wish. This wind-swept vista is where I have learned to let the cool lake breezes entwine themselves around my meddlesome worries and then pull them swiftly away.
We sit on a tall stilted bench, legs swinging back and forth like children waiting for the ice cream truck in high summer heat. Our cameras are always at hand, ready to capture the last brilliant rays of the sun as it descends to the other side of the earth. I hold my breath, waiting for the imaginary “szzzzzz” of incendiary helium as it touches the lake’s shimmering wake. I always smile at the silly thought.
We often meet others at Pier 425. They are scrappy kids on bikes, determinedly peddling as hard as they can along the length of the concrete pier, screeching with delight as their metal steeds become airborne, then belly flop unceremoniously into the water.
There are also middle-aged couples like us, holding hands as they watch the sun’s steady descent. Others are young and alone, sitting cross-legged in denim shorts, deep in brooding adolescent thought. Often, they are local residents taking their dogs for walks and, sometimes, for a game of fetch the stick from the water. Always, they are just as fascinated, just as in awe as we.
Lately, we have trekked this way more often during the week, sensing that each day is seconds shorter than the one before, knowing that summer’s Western New York tenure is nearly through. But, my friend explains, October is coming, and with it the most spectacular of all Lake Ontario sunsets. I’m in for a treat, he tells me, and it makes me almost wish for October and its shivery, leaf-sweeping, lake-skimming breezes.
I have found myself of late encouraging others to take in the rara avis of a Lake Ontario sunset. I want to share this newfound but ancient treasure because I feel as Mahatma Gandhi surely must have as he wrote, “When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the creator.”
