Magic Hour
That time of day when the sun has grown sleepy, and is slowly surrendering to the landscape in evolving shades of corals and pinks and sometimes purples…
…that’s my sky.
Either that or the kind of smudgy, blurry day that has no beginning and no end — just an in-between.
Where you can’t find your north because you’ve decided that staying inside the clouds for a little while feels better than finding your way out.
I have always found pleasure in grey areas.
I watch the sky change after the sun has stopped her shining, through the woods behind my home every evening. Wintered, naked trees in the foreground; wavy, watercolored sky behind.
If I were a painter, I would paint this every day.
But I am not, so I watch it. I watch it and I see it, like I’m listening to it.
Do you ever do that? Watch something that you want to hear and feel more clearly? I guess that’s just what observing is to most people, but sometimes I feel things so deeply that I can see how they move within me.
I can see Wilson Pickett sing “Hey Jude” even though I’m a Paul McCartney Fan.
I see Donny Hathaway sing “Jealous Guy” even though I’m a John Lennon Fan.
I see Joe Cocker sing “With a Little Help from My Friends” even though I’m a Beatles fan.
Some things are just better felt as mind renderings.
I watch this sky painting every evening like the sun is trying to tell me something in those brief minutes of glorious color, before she’s no longer able to keep herself up.
Before the moon takes over and shadows everything with curiosity and craft.
This production I watch every evening is called Magic Hour.
And every evening while I watch her take her bow, I can feel the sun’s heaviness. I feel her being pulled,
and I feel her refusing to fight it.
She has held her head high all day. She is tired. She is setting,
she is settling,
she is finally resting.
She still has something to say, no matter how weary. So she gives us almost an hour, sometimes only a handful of minutes of glory before she disappears into the night.
It’s almost as if she’s unsure if there is anything on the other side, and she wants to be remembered for something more than just what she revealed of herself that day.
I understand.
How beautiful and powerful that this small frame of time is what we all call her most magical hour.
Not the twelve hours during the day when she shines brightly over everything equally. Not when she is giving her entire self to everyone else.
No. Just that almost hour, that sometimes only a handful of minutes when she is about to rest, is her magical hour.
Magic hour is the sliver of time before the sun sets, or before she rises again, giving us a gorgeous kaleidoscope of illumination. The sky will only show this spectrum of colors during magic hour. And even though I can find it every evening, it feels like an elusive luxury every time.
Magic hour is the time of day when a photographer gets their best shot under the street lights because it’s the time of day when the light that the sky is casting matches the lights of everything underneath it.
It’s the time of day when the cinematographer and the actors are on their best behavior because if they don’t get their shot, they all know they have to wait another 12 hours before they can try again.
Magic hour is a mystical connector of otherwise opposing hues and shadows. A nightly genie wish that makes all the things seem like they belong,
and everything just a bit more beautiful than it was before.
And we all get to experience this special display…
simply because the sun is going to sleep.
Simply because she has decided to rest.
I watch this sky performance every evening and I try to listen. As she dips down into the landscape, I find that things are more quiet, and answers are easier to find.
Sometimes the questions you held onto so desperately when the sun was only revealing yellow have now evaporated.
Things never hurt as much when the light changes.
My own body begins to shut down before my brain does every evening. There has always been a heavy amount of dissonance between what my mind is saying, and what my body will do. As if I’m a lazily constructed robot with various cranks and switches, and none of them seem to work at the same time.
I’m stronger than the average five foot, three (and a half!) inch woman in both my body and my mind, so I understand the battle existing inside of me.
It’s exhausting, hosting such fierce forces.
No wonder I’m asleep before 9 every night.
Being raised by more of a coach than a father may have contributed to this. Never being allowed to make an excuse, or slow down. And always having to push through any ailment is a tough lesson to unlearn.
I promise I’m working on it.
I promise to plan to work on it more.
Maybe that’s what I’m listening out for every evening — a new lesson in grace for myself.
But every evening, at the most inconvenient time for everyone around me, I begin to drift into drowsy. I must lie down. I must rest. I am being pulled to the landscape and I mustn’t fight it.
Nor must we speak of it, or else my mind will surely scare the sleepy away.
But…
If my mind has even the slightest chance to overshadow what my body wants, my mind wins and I remain awake
and there is nothing this host can do about it.
This is my magic hour.
Whether before I fall asleep, or before anyone else has woken up — and sometimes for only a handful of minutes, I listen while my mind reveals a beautiful painting in shades of corals and pinks and sometimes purples.
My magic hour is when I am most creative, and I can only get there if I override my body. And since I’m a lazily constructed robot, no one gave me the instructions for how to override the override. And since I still am not a painter, I listen to what my mind needs to tell me.
Most of the time, my mind is only telling me the things I already know. Things my body never allows it to hear during the day because she works so very hard.
This is the only time of day when I’m vulnerable enough, (or is it strong enough?) to be able to listen.
And while I recognize I’m perpetually the odd one in the room who gets sleepy before anyone else, I often wonder if that means I’m the wrong one in the room who gets sleepy before anyone else.
I think about things like that a lot, whether it’s when I’m watching the sun fall asleep, or waiting for my turn in each of our respective magic hours.
I generally feel wrongly placed in this world, yet simultaneously right inside of my body. Am I really just in the wrong place most of the time?
Was I just built wrong?
What if I’m one of the few people doing and thinking things in the right way, and everyone else around me just doesn’t know what I know?
How will I ever know the answer to that?
I don’t think I will. I just think that’s what life is all about — navigating your way through the feels rights and the feels wrongs and mostly just vacillating between the two. I don’t think any of us have it right.
Except for the sun. And Dolly Parton.
I think it’s just all about perspective. We all have our own view of what our, or someone else’s, magic hour may be. And we shouldn’t try to take that away from anyone.
I think I can be your wrong and also my right, and we are both correct.
Even the sun shows us something different depending on where we are in the world. Before she rises and before she finally falls, the colors and shapes she chooses to share with us depend on where, when, and how we’re looking at her.
She can be neon and wild. A scape laden with possibility and bounce...
And a mere 24 hours later, she can give us sultry and beguiling.
A careful warning, or an auspicious cue...
It all just depends on what you’re looking for in there.
I’ll continue to listen to the sun when she puts on her light show every evening. Maybe I’ll make my own sense of her colors and you’ll make yours. But there’s a lot of comfort to be found in watching something… someone, work so hard… and then know precisely when it’s time to rest and give someone else a turn.
It’s what I’m hoping to figure out while I watch the sun in her most magical hour. Maybe someday I’ll figure out how to make all the parts of me work simultaneously.
Or maybe this is just Me and I have been gracefully and luckily shown my magic hour when everyone else is either still awake… or still asleep.
It’s all about perspective, anyway.
Aww, loved this piece SO much Abbey. I'm also a sky watcher, moon lover too. You have captured something so life giving. Xo💜
I know that feeling of trying to watch and remember so well. I wish I could drink it in or bottle it up but perhaps the fact that it’s fleeting is what makes it so magical in the first place. Beautiful pictures, beautiful words, Abbey!