Between Dusk and Darkness

I scrambled to get out the door. Tying back my hair with both hands and holding gloves in my teeth I zipped around my house looking for my jacket. I darted out the door with one arm in the coat and the other shoving my house key in my pocket. I looked up at the setting sun and hoped to get my 6-mile run in before dark. I couldn’t find my headlamp and ran out of time.

It took a few minutes for my panicked, still rushing pace to settle into normal. I tried breathing and relaxing and just letting my feet do the work. It had been a day of rushing around. By the time I reached my second mile, I found my rhythym and started to believe I might have just enough light to make it home.

At about the halfway point, I hit the last uphill and my favorite place on this route, the bridge. All the uphills to get there payoff when I can see the sky stretching out on either side, and a busy road of cars passing under my feet traveling right into the sunset. After winding through the woods it is refreshing to stand in a place with a clear view for miles. 

Despite my rush to beat the darkness I stopped on the bridge. I looked to my left and saw an almost full moon glowing in the dusty blue sky. I looked to my right and saw nothing but streaks of pink and orange that seemed to be burning, as if the sun was flashing a rainbow of warmth, begging to be seen and appreciated before sinking into darkness for the day. I snapped a picture of the view from either side. 

This place between light and dark is so breathtakingly beautiful. The blaze orange sun and moon rising seem to promise hope when we cannot define exactly where we are. Maybe we don’t need to. Maybe we only need to stand still for a minute and just appreciate that every moment cannot be confined to a category, word, or place. Sometimes we are in the middle of something beyond definition—between dusk and darkness. We are not quite where we used to be and not quite where we want to be yet.

But there is beauty in that space. There is movement and energy and something just necessary about appreciating the bridge as its own location. I spent the rest of the run trying to take in the subtle shifts in  light and color that happen at dusk. 

A lot of times we are in such a rush to get from one place to another that by the time we arrive we can’t remember how we got there. We miss all of those subtle changes in our environment and in ourselves. In my experience, growth, change, life—they don’t happen in dramatic shifts. They happen as gradually as the sun sets and seasons change. It’s one foot in front of the other until we arrive. Many of those steps are mundane or even painful. But let’s not be in such a rush that we miss those glorious places—the places where we have a clear and beautiful view of where we have come from, and where we are going. No matter what deadline we have placed on ourselves to be somewhere or become something, there is enough time to pause for a second and realize wherever we are rushing to is no more beautiful than the place we are right now.