The other day I received a text from a very good friend of mine. The text simply read, “What is your favorite time of day?”

I didn’t think about it too much, I responded with, “I like when the sun is setting.”

She went on to ask me how it made me feel. I wasn't surprised by such curiosity coming from her. We both have a mutual understanding and apprecitaion for one another's lengthy use of words. I enjoy our many conversations and I was delighted to see the opening of a new one.

I really thought about it for awhile. I tried to reflect on where I often find myself during this time of day. Now that the days are shorter, the most routine occurrence of me witnessing the sun setting is usually while I’m walking back to my dorm from an afternoon class I have three days a week. I tried to pull myself back to that state of mind. I imagined myself on that walk back. A sidewalk aligned with orange and brown leaves and tall tress, a perfect path to a gorgeous dated dormitory with warm lit glowing windows radiating out into the cold November air and welcoming me back. I walk into the dormitory to see a regal staircase with large open windows, the light shining right in as it faces the sun going down so steadily. The definition of grandeur. You can see the shadows of the crisscrossed lines that cover the glass running amongst the adjacent wall. I find this becoming the subject of many of my photographs recently. Windows and the light they allow to stream in. it’s alluring, almost flirtatious the way the light hits the wall with such elegance just to fade away so quickly. Remaining out of touch for the rest of the night, like star-crossed lovers, the sun and the earth. The fall sunsets are just far too enticing to pass up. Wildly orange and sultry.

When the day is ending and there’s a warm glow it reminds me of the intricacy around me that’s so often forgotten. I’m able to see past the mundane and step outside the course of the day. I think to myself, “Wow, this is mother earth and I hold a meaningful place here, she’s alive and beautiful and moving and glowing and changing.”

It’s not just solid ground anymore. We’re not just people moving through routine. We’re apart of something magnificent and much bigger than our own understanding, we’re apart of this whole set of planets and galaxies. It’s so much more complex than we allow ourselves to realize. It makes me feel so alive seeing the day run away and the night start to creep in, seeing the sunset, because this world is real and its capable of magic. Colors painting the sky. An elaborate masterpiece. That masterpiece is our home. We reside here in the greatest of minds, the greatest of paint-strokes and sculpture. The greatest of creation. We are abstract, we are impressionism, we are surrealism. We are artwork. Living and breathing and rotating among our own axis.

It isn’t just me standing alone on my own two feet staring off into the distance of the late afternoon sky any longer.

I’m a small spec in the bird’s eye view of this wondrous work of art.

I responded first with only one word. The most natural summary for the flood of thoughts that had swept right past me.

I typed.

It makes me feel,

“Real."