December 31
Sunsets
I am thankful for sunsets. I think sunsets are among the most beautiful things on this earth. I remember a line from Richard Harris' Slides record album. In the title song Slides, written by Tony Romeo, a section of which is narrative, Harris is a school teacher and he is showing his class photographic slides from his vacation. He says "What you're about to see in times of sickness is my cure. Living well is my best revenge, you can be sure...Sunset. Another sunset. I know it looks indistinguishable from the last, but I remember the diifference." So, I also believe that sunsets are unique. They vary from day to day and from place to place. A well placed sunset is the perfect nightcap to a perfect, or even imperfect, day.
This is a sunset as seen from the Oasis restaurant on Lake Travis near Austin, Texas. The sunsets from this restaurant are absolutely magnificent. Below is a sunset over Lake Martin in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.
sunset
sunset my dear old friend
coming around again
at day’s end
painting the sky in vivid
red and yellow
and following that goodbye
with sunrise’s hello
so as long as you’ll have me
i’ll try to visit you daily
you may perform your nightly show
as i salute your splendid glow.
© rt tulley
sunset ii
the sunset of our lives
can be most rewarding
the reminisces of a life well spent
as the day ends in a saturated blaze of glory
perhaps in its finest hour
nature often postpones the best for last
as daylight turns to dark
bright oranges offer salute to the past.
© rt tulley
Today marks the completion of one full year of my Photo of the Day Blog with the theme Things I am Thankful For. My plan was always to begin with a sunrise photo and end with a sunset one, both of which I did. I feel a great deal of self satisfaction that I was able to stay the course and complete this year long project. There were times of self doubt and times when I was tired and wanted to go to sleep but instead made the time to complete the next day's blog. Going back to work full time in November created another difficulty which robbed me of valuable time to work on the project: taking photos, matching photos to themes, writing text, and writing poems. It was fairly easy to find a photo to use and even coming up with things to be thankful for was not that difficult (I kept a list on a spreadsheet - I used 364 unique themes but still have 163 unused ones). But it was sometimes very difficult to find or take a photo that matched a theme.
For those reasons, I am going to take a little rest from the daily blog. My plan is to continue with a photo blog but not do it every day and do it on more of a wide variety of topics. How often, we'll see how it goes. Maybe once a week or once a month or so. Or whenever the fancy strikes. Stay tuned. But I will be back.
One more word: you may wonder why I listed 364 unique themes rather than 365. The reason is that I inadvertently used one theme twice (security). I noticed the next day following the second time but decided not to say anything and nobody mentioned it to me. So for that reason, (I don't want to rob you of your year's worth), I am going to do one more photo blog tomorrow as lagniappe! See you tomorrow for the special lagniappe finale!