Wanted: Sunset stalkers. Must be willing to work evenings. Your job: Watching the sun go down. It is a terrible job but somebody’s got to do it. All applications considered regardless of race, creed, age, political party or sex.
I tried out recently for the sunset stalker position. The job location was Pigeon Key in the upper Florida Keys. Sure there were more than 100 other possible applicants, all of whom just happened to be at Pigeon Key that night as part of a Florida Outdoor Writers Association Conference. Most people were standing around picnic tables, paper plates in hand, hungrily waiting for dinner to appear, oblivious to the drama about to begin.
A few of us had more important fish to fry. Dinner could go on hold. Sunsets wait for no one. You have to be there. We stalked the shoreline and paced the boat dock, on countdown, cameras in hand, looking west at the Gulf of Mexico, known as Bayside in the Keys.
Pigeon Key is small, just five acres. Hundreds of railroad workers lived here in the 1800s when Henry Flagler wanted the Seven-Mile Bridge built, part of his Key West extension of the Florida East Coast Railway. The workers are long gone. Visitors are welcome. There is an admission fee. Historic buildings and a science center inhabit the small island being restored and preserved by the Pigeon Key Foundation. Website: www.pigeonkey.net
For visitors, this little island serves up sunsets Hollywood would die for. But it can be iffy. Would thick clouds on the horizon obscure the sunset? Might this be one of those endings when sun’s rays shot up through the clouds but no fireball touches the water? Or could this be the night we’d see the famous flash of green as the sun sizzles out and says good night? Would it be beautiful or blah? Every moment as the sun goes down, things change.
Tension was in the air. So were dragonflies. And swallows, daring gravity like a kamikaze pilot married to a heat-seeking missile. Jerking and turning in tandem with their small mosquito targets, they made silent kills, dive bombing with swept wing precision.
Sunsets happen fast and are packed with drama. Just when it seemed the clouds would win out, a round eruption of brilliance brighter than any volcano highlighted a cloud on the horizon. The sunset would not be denied.
Liquid gold and burnt orange spilled onto the water, making a path of fire colors that ran across the water and lapped at our feet. Cameras clicked. Everyone danced around like sports photographers in the end zone on a touchdown pass, as though moving a few feet to the left or right would make the view even better, the picture even more perfect.
The swallows became frantic, stepping up their mosquito bombing runs, getting in a few more morsels before twilight. Fish, bitten by the same urge to feed before dark, struck bait. Fisherman wading in the shallows cast their lines and got lucky.
Genesis tells us God like to walk in the Garden of Eden during the cool of the day. I like to think that was late afternoon, when shadows lengthen and swallows do their air shows. Surely he stayed for sunset.
You too could apply to be a sunset stalker. This is an ongoing job call. Just show up.Job sites vary. Maybe in a garden. Perhaps at the beach or a park. Or wherever you live.Your back yard works fine. No experience necessary. Be available as the sun goes down. Put dinner on hold. Turn off your cell phone. Go outside. Sit. Look. Listen. Stand. Dance. Walk around. Take pictures. Pray. Be thankful.
Take a cue from the Creator. God saw all that he had made and it was very good. And so it is. Especially the sunsets.
Lucy Beebe Tobias is a freelance writer, artist and photographer living in Ocala, Florida. Text and photo © 2006 Lucy Beebe Tobias.