Chasing Sunsets

If you take a quick glance through my phone’s camera roll, you’ll most likely find an endless sea of sunset pictures. Some of them might be captured perfectly, taken on a vacation somewhere in Canada on a cold November evening. In this photo, shades of red, orange, and purple ink the sky with Quebec city’s historic buildings twinkling over the serene landscape.

Other shots might not be so perfect. Some images might be blurred and crooked, like the one quickly taken in my car at a stoplight on an intersection just minutes away from home. Still, I was desperate to capture the small satisfaction of watching the sun set after a long day at work.

I’m not entirely sure how or when this sentimental habit of mine began, but chasing sunsets has become a natural part of my life. I could be anywhere, doing anything or absolutely nothing at all, and I would drop whatever I’m doing to look up at the sky for a moment and watch the colors there shift and change before my eyes. I don’t really think about how my fingers will automatically search for my phone to snap a picture.

Perhaps it might be cheesy or cliché, but I remember every story behind each sunset picture I take. The date and time stamps in my camera roll document these exact moments, like rolls of film taken apart frame by frame.

On January 26 at exactly 6 p.m., I am in Florida watching the sun set over the beach and pier. It’s the day after my birthday, and I’ve come to nurse a hangover from the previous night’s celebration with my sister.

On March 29 at 7:20 pm, I’m picking up dinner for my family. A picturesque sky looms over a Popeyes building in the distance, and I can almost smell those Cajun fries I drool over every time.

On June 7 at 8:47 pm, I’m on a mall rooftop with a boy I like. It’s nearly dark outside, with just a hint of an orange glow in the clouds, and my picture turns out a little blurry when the boy leans in to kiss me.

On October 31 at 5:30 pm, I’m walking through parking lot K with tears in my eyes. The sky is overcast with the sun held hostage by the clouds, and I feel the icy Autumn wind pierce straight through my jacket. It’s the day I find out that I’d lost a friend overnight.

I carry these moments, these snapshots of my life with every sunset I run after. Each picture is a reminder that life is constantly moving, sometimes too fast and sometimes too slow. I might be in a different place and time, or in a different season, mixed emotions and experiences swirling past me as a I go about each day, the sun changing and shifting its place with me. But at the end of the day, even on cloudy evenings after a terrible storm, the sun will always set and come home.

| Lara Mercado

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