Sunset Ridge

I traveled more than 2,000 miles this week and yet I’m still sitting on a park bench in Brooklyn.

I discovered the beauty and tranquility of a sunset recently and now I’m wondering what the hell took me so long.

It was a Saturday night, I hadn’t made any plans, and I was feeling crabby, hemmed in by the desire to just chill at mi casa and the pressure to do something, anything to make the weekend more exciting.

I’m trying to get out of the house more, especially now that it’s warm out.

There will be plenty of reasons to stay the hell home when the temperature starts to drop, but right now I want to get away from the TV and enjoy life.

I live right near the Narrows and after dinner I made an impromptu decision to go to the nearby 69th Street pier and take in the sunset.

I can’t remember the last time I did this—if I've ever done it at all.

I have a vague memory of watching the sun go down during a visit to the Grand Canyon nearly 18 years ago, but clearly it didn’t make much of an impression. (Though the canyon sure as hell did.)

I’m usually too busy thinking 20 different thoughts at once and I end up completely ignoring this spectacular nightly miracle.

So on this night I stood at the end of the pier absorbing the rays of the summer sun. Then I walked up to nearby Bliss Park, sat down on a park bench overlooking the Narrows and let the sunset pass right through me.

Palm City

Bliss Park really lived up to its name.

It may sound weird and new age-ish, but I forgot all my problems, dropped the chronic need to be somewhere else, and just enjoyed the damn moment.

The day was coming to an end in my neck of the woods, but it was rising in somebody else’s part of the world and I felt like we were connected.

The moment was so special that I actually said the Our Father and a couple of Hail Marys. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

I went back home feeling like I had accomplished something and took it easy for the rest of the night.

On Tuesday I flew down to Naples, Fla. to attend a conference for work.

I met some great people and stayed at a fabulous hotel, but I was only there until Thursday and now the whole experience that I had worried about for weeks feels like a dream.

Still it was nice to get out of town and see someplace new.

And I got a chance to look out my hotel window and see the sun go down in the Gulf of Mexico. It was beautiful, of course, but it didn’t match the feeling I got sitting on that bench in Bay Ridge.

Summer is flying by and already I can see the days growing shorter. Pretty soon the sun will start going down in the afternoon and it’ll be dark before I even leave my office.

And that’s all the more reason to enjoy the sunset while I can.