When I was little, I used to think that if I could just run fast enough, I could catch up with the sun, and then I could live in eternal daytime and never have to experience another night. Oh, I practiced and practiced, determined to get faster and faster. It worked. I did get faster, a lot faster. First I outran all of my friends. Then I became the fastest runner in my school. Soon after, I was going to track meets and competing against dozens of different schools. But I never did get fast enough to keep up with the sun.
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| In pursuit of the sun. |
Now I wonder why I ever would have wanted to do such a
thing. Perhaps it was a desire for
travel, a wanderlust, and watching the sun as it sailed off into the west made
my spirit cry out for exploration. But
there was something I didn’t understand back then, a vital hidden piece of the
true glory of the sun. I couldn’t
understand it because I was so blinded by the brilliance and the strength and
the speed of the fiery ball. What could
be more wonderful than that? As I got a
little older, I realized that the sun reaches its most alluring and beautiful point
only against the backdrop of the night.
Without the night, the sun loses a lot of its mesmerizing
attraction. Without the encroaching deep
blue and later black, the sun has no canvas to paint its beautiful colors. It’s the night that defines the sun, giving
us a comparison, enticing us with an opposite, teaching us the balance. It’s the night that showcases the
magnificence of the sun. It’s the night
that allows us to look toward the sun, which would otherwise be too painful and
blinding. It’s the night that adds the
cool and soothing bandage to the unbearable heat left by the sun.
And at the end of the night as we approach morning, it’s the
night that greets the sun first before the rest of us even get a chance. It’s the night that hails the return of the
glory of the sun. It’s the night that
lays out the blue carpet and asks for the next dance.
