We took a trail this afternoon, a little too late thanks to lingering in the night before and in the morning of the new year. We lingered on the trail as well, meandering, the sun moving its course, and not deciding to turn around, we finally got to our goal, Suicide Rock, at sunset. It was beautiful, my camera no longer working. We were there quickly and quickly started our descent, hoping it would take less than the two hours it took us to get there. Streaks of red shot though the trees, both deep and incendiary. Had I been able, there would still be no way to have captured it.
We made it down alive. There really was very little danger. But it means holding the memory of that transient state between light and dark a little longer in my mind, feeling fading come faster than I had wanted, recognizing the years in a single year, and a single year's turning in a single day, and all the seconds that breath in a sunset.
