#13 - sunrise, sunset
You can listen to the playlist on Spotify or scroll to the end.
I.
I missed my usual subway stop reading, which was okay, because I live between two stations both within a short walking distance of my apartment. I got off at the next stop and started walking home when I caught a glimpse of a beautiful sunset to my left, barely visible behind the rows of houses and trees lining up Bed-Stuy. I took my phone out for a picture, but it was too faint and distant for my camera, obvious as it was to my eyes. Without enough thought to constitute decision-making, I put my skateboard down, and started skating towards it. I became briefly conscious of the fact I was skating in the wrong direction; into Bed-Stuy, which was on my left, while I live in Bushwick, to my right. And once my spontaneous sunset-seeking skating is over, I would be farther from home on an evening I felt so tired all I wanted to be was at home.
I’d been sick for a week and then it was raining for a week, so I hadn’t really skated for two. And all I wanted when the weather took a turn yesterday was to skate, but my day was too full. And then all I wanted today was to skate, but I was too tired. But here I was, finally, happily skating, streets mostly paved, weather beautiful, sunset in sight, albeit slightly out of reach. And as I chased closer to the view, the sun set further, and the trees covered more of it, and I never quite got there in time, but I didn’t care.
II.
A few days ago, I was walking home after class when I thought to myself, wow, what a truly horrible mont- and I stopped myself, maybe in judgement, maybe in ridicule, maybe in guilt, wondering how that thought crossed my mind. I’ve had several of my most joyful nights and days in the past month. I sang my heart out to my favorite music live, I caught up with friends I missed, I made new ones.
Just an hour before, in class, we were discussing what constitutes scientific research. Someone made an argument that while certain disciplines are primarily concerned with the study of events, others are concerned with the study of regularities. I and others commented about how, of course, many research agendas don’t neatly fit into one category or the other; understanding why or how singular events occurred can give insight into broader trends or regularities, etc. But the broader point stood: events vs. regularities.
I started wondering if this distinction can frame my not-very-well-thought-out reflection on the past month (and other times, too). I thought back to times when I was experiencing a lot of big, exciting, happy events, but my baseline was a bit more miserable. And then months when I honestly could not tell you a single ~ significant ~ event that happened, but it was generally pretty blissful. And then all the other combinations. Of course, again, these aren’t strict categories. The events - the concerts and fun nights with friends and bigger wins - can shape the regularities, but they aren’t always aligned. I think of the latter as what fills the spaces in between, and sometimes consumes the spaces within. How you feel and what you think of on the commute back home, in the moments (or hours) before you fall asleep, and the ones before you get out of bed. What it’s like being in yet another class, doing yet another assignment, going back to the same playlists.
III.
In the minutes before I realized I missed my usual subway stop today, I was reading an essay about Chance the Rapper from Hanif Abdurraqib’s They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us. But it’s about Chance the Rapper in the way that any of Hanif Abdurraqib’s work can be about something. In the foreword, Eve L. Ewing writes:
“In They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, everything is quite literally everything. Race is music is love is America is death is rebirth is brotherhood is growing up is a mother is music is music is music.”
In the essay I was reading, Abdurraqib writes:
“I, like so many of you, am now looking to get my joy back, after it ran away to a more deserving land than this one. And maybe this is what it’s like to live in these times: the happiness is fleeting, and so we search for more while the world burns around us. There is optimism in that, too, in knowing that more happiness is possible.”
I immediately skated down some street in Bed-Stuy earlier today because the sun looked so beautiful, and the weather felt so perfect, but not much unlike countless beautiful sunrises and sunsets and good weather days I’ve already experienced before.
As I skated towards the view, I thought of Abdurraqib’s words, fresh in my mind, the optimism in knowing that more happiness is possible. Then I remembered my own convoluted reflections from a few days ago on my emotional state and events vs. regularities, and I thought, incredibly un-originally, what can be more regular than the sun rising and setting?
Sure, some days you can’t get out of bed early enough to catch the sunrise, or you don’t even notice the day turning into night, or the weather’s even gloomier than you feel and the sun is covered by clouds. But still, every day, every morning and evening, somewhere around the world, many places around the world, people regularly find joy and beauty and maybe even a silly little skating opportunity in a beautiful sunrise or sunset. And in every one of them, more happiness is possible.
Here’s 10 (sort of) sun-related songs.
10 songs
(Spotify)
The Sun Will Rise Over The Year - Roo Panes
Sunblind - Fleet Foxes
Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles
Sunflower - Vampire Weekend ft. Steve Lacy
Sunflower - Post Malone vs. Swae Lee
Always the Sun - The Stranglers
Don’t Take My Sunshine - The Soul Children
Sunrise, Sunset - Bright Eyes
Sun May Shine - Tamino
Sunset - Beach House