hello sun

I am a sun worshipper. This should not be a secret. I am very vocal about it. I can sit in the sun all day and it makes all the nerve ending of my body feel alive! I love the way it beats down on my back and makes me feel relaxed and calm. I consider myself a Californian, simply because I have spent the most formative years of my life here, however, my home is in Arizona. My roots are deep there. All my familia lives there and occasionally, when I cant remember what it is to take a deep cleansing breath, the desert is where I run to find who I am again. Arizona sun is a force all of its own. In the dead of summer, I jokingly call it the face of the sun, and its an accurate description. However, the sun there is plentiful. I think its why I am the sun worshipper I am. I am a desert girl at heart.

The favorite part of my sunny days is the dusk time frame. When the warm sun is heading towards the horizon and the rays beat shadows on everything it touches. In my opinion, there is no prettier time of day. I love the way the sun kisses a romantic look to peoples faces and hair. How the air starts to cool down here in my dock by the bay, how the shadows lazily stretch.

All the important parts of my life, have this exact time frame of the day as a memory. I recall my grandfather coming home from work with the sun on his back, a smile on his face because he was so happy to see me. I remember sitting under my grandmothers rose bushes, feet sunk into the mud as she went through her rows of rosebushes watering them. Playing with my cousins in the dirt, waiting on dinner... oh the cousin memories are precious. In my later years, I remember the way the Golden Gate looked as the sun hit it as I drove across it, making me fall in love with this place. Waves slapping on the rocks in Bodega Bay, the sun glistening off the water. Laughing in a car with my friends, sun visors down. In my adult life, long road marches home at this time of day. Gear filthy, boots covered in dirt, strides less lengthy than earlier in the day, body slightly limp, rifle lightly carried, but the glorious sun streaming on our bodies casting shadows, pointing the way home. Cowboys sitting on a fence line. Rushing to the hospital to give birth to my son with slanted streams of sun coming through the windows. Watching my kids play in the sandbox as young children while I read books on how to become a writer. All of these memories carry the one common denominator, the evening sun that I love to worship.

I guess you could say, I find my zen in the setting sun.