#2

A long, long time ago, back in my homey Caribbean, my family and I traveled to a small island in the country. I can’t remember how long we spent there, but I developed my love for Mamma Mia, piña coladas, and soft beds there.

While in the island, my grandpa died in the homeland. My sister and I stayed alone for a few days before going back, but this particular post is not about that.

We have been there so many times that I think of all the visits as chapters of one book that is very similar all throughout.

One of the days I was at the beach with my family, we decided to sit down and watch the sunset. We got particularly lucky that day, since there was a version of a sunny supermoon (the sun looked like it was straight out of the Lion King). I like to think of it as if we were in the right place at the right time, because it felt straight out of a movie. The entire sky was fucsia and orange with midtones of pale yellow, and the water took on a purply-turquoise colour. We were so small, we are so small, we will always be so small compared to the eternity of the sun and ocean. Even then, nothing felt wrong or scary, I think we were the most connected with nature that we had been in a while. We just stood in front of the sun, and if someone were watching us through a screen, it would’ve made a beautiful silhouetted shot. Time stopped existing: it was just the sun, the shhh of the ocean, and us.

Slowly, she was tucking away into the ocean: sleepy, waiting for her sister to lighten up the night sky. The fucsia turned into a pale pink, and little by little, the ocean would consume a small portion of her round shape, leaving the top of a circle hanging on the horizon. Until then, everything was completely illuminated, beautiful, soft, sweet: then, the last bit of the sun went away, and for a millisecond everything turned pitch-black, until the black turned into deep but faded navy blue, until shadows blended away, until our eyes got used to the darkness and our tiny bodies remembered time.

I think I fall short in words to explain how awe-striking was that sunset, and how it made me love sunsets more than sunrises. That afternoon explains why I always long for someone to share a sunset with, why I have spots to cry at while I watch the sunset, why I read with sunset light, why I love the beach so much. My bit of home, the small Caribbean and its natural beauty, its cozy warmth, it’s all what has shaped me as a loving, warm person. I try to be like a sunset: cozy, comforting, beautiful. That afternoon grew a higher respect for the ocean. The saltiness of the beach somehow intensifies when the sun sets; you’re a little stickier, a little warmer.

Sunsets feel like home and lately I’ve been so homesick.

I long for a sunset that will take me home…