SUNSETS IN THE PHILIPPINES

I have always loved sunsets.  As a youth I would sit and watch the sun slowly settle behind distant trees, its flaming light sparkling through the upper branches. Then as I became older I would park the car atop a bluff on the Southwest side of town and gaze as that blinding orb sank below the distant horizon of corn and bean fields.  When life wasn’t all that it should be, I could always find solace in the sunsets which calmed my troubled spirit and soothed a restless soul. 

During my tour in the Philippines with the US Navy, my operations building was located just a few hundred feet from the South China Sea. I was an analyst at the time, but on the evenings when work was light or my tasks were completed, I would sit upon the two step stoop and let my mind wander as old sol dropped into the turquoise waters.   As dusk consumed the day and the darkness of another night unfolded, bouncing lights from the many small fishing boats slowly appeared.  When working the midnight shift (we worked on a rotation basis of days, midnights, and evenings), the sea of banca boat lights seemed to be a reflection of the constellations overhead. The heat and humidity of the night’s air seemed to accentuate the life around me.  I never forgot those sunsets.  They were branded within the few gray cells I possessed; sometimes it was a curse, while at other times a blessing of my many memories of the Philippines.

After returning to the States, I yearned to find the beauty of those sunsets I so enjoyed in the Philippines.  I tried California, Washington and even the Gulf Coast of Florida, but they didn’t have the same allure. Even the sunrises in Maine did not sooth me the way those tropical sunsets in that far distant land had done.  So, I spent the next thirty-three years searching in vain for something that didn’t exist within my country.  Perhaps it was the weather conditions, or the incessant crowds who packed the beaches each night. Maybe it was the wrong odors, unusual noises, or even the color of the water that bred unfamiliarity.  All I knew was that nothing could duplicate what I had experienced almost nightly for almost three years. 

In 2009 I returned to that island paradise and almost immediately headed toward the west coast.  My first night I stayed on the coastline just south of Santa Cruz. The beach was of white sand and the water was crystal clear, but as I sat upon the solar warmed grains of rock watching the light of life slowly drop into the silent sea, I felt something missing.  My heart sank just a little as I feared that what had been in the past, may have well been an illusion.  That I was mentally grasping for that proverbial pot of gold at the end of a non-existent rainbow.  I retired that evening in my night room, but was unable shake the dour disposition that strived to consume my very soul.

The next day, I ventured about fifty miles further south to a resort outside of Iba.  Again, the sand was white, but the terrain looked more familiar and it was there upon that coast I rediscovered what I had lost.  I looked for something, anything to explain the reason for my contentment, but it was there all the same.  As the yellow orb settled below the distant waters, a peaceful calm flowed within.  It was as if I had never been gone.  A slight puff of warm humid air brushed my cheeks as the aroma of nearby cooking wood fires tickled my senses. The calamity of the birds settling in for the evening and the sounds of geckos calling in the twilight brought back more and more memories of a paradise long ago taken for granted by its natives.  For those lingering moments I was no longer fifty-eight years old, but a young adult of twenty-four once again. 

I returned to the Philippines in 2010 and meandered about the big  island of Luzon, but except for that small segment of coastline, the sunsets were, for lack of a better word, uninspiring.  I took a bus down to the island of Cebu after hearing such great praises of the land down south.  When I did settle onto the west coast of the island, I discovered the sun never did find the sea there as the island of Negros (immediately to the west of Cebu) consistently blocked the view.  The sun was beautiful as it slowly sank toward the distant mountaintops, but there the feeling ended.  I guess sunsets were like a drug to me.  In a way I considered it similar to alcohol, cocaine, or prescription drugs, as that setting sun provided me with a psychological and somewhat euphoric high.   

 

In February of 2011 I ventured over to that island of Negros and visited the west coast. I stayed at a resort there and discovered the most beautiful sunsets ever.  I was there for three nights and each night’s spectacle was mesmerizing in its beauty.  The colors in the sky, the texture of the waters, the subtlety and angel like movements of that descending sphere left me speechless.  I was immediately hooked forever.

I moved here in July 2011 and have always been inspired by each sunset I have had the opportunity to savor.  Since there’s no dry season here, about half of the time, the setting sun would drift downward behind dark clouds, but all it resulted in was to make those unobscured sunsets all that more spectacular. Sometimes I would sit on my motorbike, chin in hand, and wonder at the beauty.  Other times I would bring my camera and take digital memories of those golden rays as they flashed atop the rolling waves of the Sulu Sea. 

In this tiny globe of ours, everyone is in a hurry to make their mark in society.  Little do they realize that the true measure of success is to find that one thing which helps them to momentarily escape the spinning wheels of humanities madness.  I found mine in the setting sun.  It is that flaming ball of gas which has soothed me when my World was falling apart.  Old sol comforted me when I had no direction in my life.  And it will guide me when the time comes to move onto that final phase of my existence.