Enjoy It While You Can

There is a sunset that sticks in my alleged mind that, to my memory, was the best sunset I have ever experienced. In the 13 years since that experience, every time I see a nice sunset I always say to myself, or to whoever is in earshot, “Yeah, it’s a nice one, but not as nice as this one I saw when I was crossing the Equator back in ’92.”

Usually, unless I am stopped by the listener, I would launch into the story of “The best sunset I ever saw.”

Recently I was perusing some photos that I’d taken during that voyage across the Pacific, and I happened upon a picture that I’d taken of that particular sunset.

It was a great sunset, no doubt about it, but I have to admit, I have seen one or two that rivaled it, or might even have surpassed it.

So I started cranking back my cranium and trying to figure out just what the hell made me so sure that was the best sunset I had ever experienced.

It wasn’t the colors. I’d seen colors as bright or as varied hundreds of times. As I looked at the photo I realized it really wasn’t the sunset that had been so perfect, it had been the whole day, the state of mind, and the company I was with.

You know what I mean? It’s like, have you ever gone back to a place that was “home” to you, and felt that it was cold and impersonal?

I know that I went to visit where I was brought up, and I was extremely disillusioned. I had always thought of it as home, but the same streets, the same school and the same house just didn’t feel like home anymore.

And then it hit me, right between the baby blues. You can never go home. Home is a time, not a place. It’s not only the surroundings, but the events and the people and even the weather and the state of the world. It all combines to create the feeling you have in your head.

When I analyze that particular sunset, it becomes obvious. I could never experience a sunset like that again. Not very likely anyway.

It was on a voyage when I was about to cross the Equator for the very first time in control of my own vessel. After years of cruising the Northern Hemisphere, I was about to enter a whole new world.

Add to that the fact that I was returning to where the sailing bug first hit me, on the island of Moorea, more than 30 years ago. That might have influenced my eyes a bit as well.

And then there was Jody. We had been friends for years, and had been “going together” for the past eight or nine months as we prepared the boat for our voyage, but all of a sudden it was more than that. At 48 years of age I thought I was probably falling in love again.

Add to that the weather. For the previous few days we’d been blown south by a pretty good weather front, and all of a sudden we were drifting along on a sea of glass. The sounds of Eric Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pop’s Orchestra was coming over the outside speakers with an instrumental version of Chris Cross’s “Sailing,” and all was right with the world.

Even the events of the world were good. 911 was still years in the future, and O.J. was just a bad actor and not a suspected murderer. Even our political climate was pretty mundane. It all came together on that day, along with a classic sunset that, to me, would be the best ever.

The next time you have a feeling come over you, as you first set your sails, or have a first landfall, or leave on an adventurous voyage, enjoy that feeling. Grab a hold of it and live it to the fullest.

Because if there is one truth, it is that you can never go home. It’s not a  place, it’s a state of mind.

So enjoy it while you can.