Sunset

The prettiest colour is the colour of the water, meaning the colour of the sky. In my opinion. 

Ever since I started working at a restaurant locating in the part of the city that showcases the sunset for, so it claims, the longest time, I have begun to constantly hear the importance of sitting at a table with a view of the sunset, especially now that it’s summer, and sunsets have become a thing—not all of a sudden, as sunsets have always been to my knowledge a precious thing, but it has taken up a new level of importance recently. 

I dropped by one of my favourite spots in the city today, right before the sun set, alone. It’s a viewpoint separated from a highway. I looked at the water—the gradual, peaceful waves, the logs in between them, spaciously spaced. The colours of the water and the sky and the clouds and the rays of sun blent in all together. It reminded me of watercolour. I thought about sunsets; although I couldn’t see it in the view, but I could feel it about to happen on the other side of the ocean and I could almost feel it. Sunsets happen every day; the sun rises and sets every day. I would even venture to say that its beauty and, ironically, rarity deserve everyone’s attention every day. So why has it been dumbed down to a thing that has been made special, that is to be watched on special occasions? The sun sets every day. The sun is probably like, buddy, I do this every day, and you’re requesting a table on the patio where you can get the best view of it, on your wife’s birthday, because it makes it that much more special? What are we so busy doing every day that we can blatantly and entirely forget, every day, around the same time, that the sun is setting somewhere where we can get an amazing view of without too much of an effort because we live in this world and the sun is so big that its heat and light have the ability to reach the majority of the planet, meaning that it is always visible somewhere that is realistically accessible. 

What are we so busy doing?

Then I thought about more, and I thought about so many wonderful things that take place every day amongst the nature that we are physically in. How much am I missing? How much have I missed? 

We really don’t live every day like it is the last day, as we often say we should. Some would say, let’s be real. I would say, no, yeah, let’s be real: the truth is that the sun sets every day, the ocean is there every day, the mountains are there every day, the trees are breathing every moment—what can be more real than that? 

What I Stopped Doing

What I stopped doing:

Writing sentimental cards or letters 

Being sentimental

Talking on the phone every night 

Heart wrench upon hearing certain names 

Receiving or writing emails to my dad 

Creating happiness for my mom

Posting pictures on Facebook

Trying as hard to hold up a conversation

I used to feel so much when I was younger, as a child, as a teenager...

I am not certain whether it’s a form of desensitization or not, because I don’t think desensitization is all it is, but this excerpt from the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close seems to capture how I feel about sentimentality slipping away from me year after year just enough: 

“Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did.

I spent my life learning to feel less. 

Every day I felt less. 

Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” 

It is so sad. What are we capable of doing that we do not know? This is one of them. Autonomic adaptation to life.

Everything was always so easily hilarious and moving and heartbreaking and unusually miraculous or devastating, but everything seems to become less of everything as the years add up. I used to cry whenever we had the moment of silence in memory of those who passed away from 9/11 in elementary and even high school. Now I can’t even cry if I want to. But sometimes, like reading stories about the little boy who was waiting for his dad at the finish line of the marathon got blown to pieces from the Boston bombing, tears just burst out of me two days after reading about it when someone asked me if I were okay. 

It is so deep. Writing sentimental and cringingly cheesy birthday or thank-you cards was my priority and strength in every occasion worth celebrating. I’ve always been a thinker. Everyone was always like, “you think too much.” Then I think I’ve thought less, not voluntarily, it just happened. Not that I’m not a thinker anymore, but I guess eventually I lost track of where the lost thoughts go and what it all means—to others, to myself, and to anything else—so, I jumped on the bandwagon of “don’t think too much about it”. 

Another birthday is approaching. Having less heart-wrenching and passionate emotions, genuinely cannot care more than what I can emotionally and financially afford, and having less energy and motivation to put, not even glue, the broken pieces together—is this growing older? Is this what is coming out of it? 

“I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live” 

Having just been to my younger brother’s high school graduation and revisiting students’ speech that always repeat every year one way or another, with lines like “ready to take on this crazy thing called ‘life’,” or “life is a game, you just need to know how to play it.” All the while, I was having briefly argumentative and almost condescending thoughts like “no!” and “it’s not true, it’s a trap!”. What it’s like to be naive and hopeful at the same time. 

At the moment, it feels like life is lifting up its veil bit by bit, and I’m hoping there is an end to this lessening of my self and that, there is much more to heartbreaking words put together in books that make me cry and struggling eternally out of an emotional hole. 

What I started doing:

Saving (more than just money) 

Not be too caught up in moods, they really are overrated 

Feeling less sad about sad things

Learning

Accepting changes

Making the first step (e.g. get out of bed, begin typing up an outline, send/reply an email etc.) 

Taking a life to learn how to live would be a waste of a life. No one knows how to live, but we just do, but I guess that is only existing. I don’t want to just exist for a life and learn how to live by the end of it, so I will try harder. 

Vancouver's New Bestie: Currywurst in Chinatown

Recent article on This Is Vancity on the new currywurst joint that opened this month:

http://thisisvancity.com/content/bestie-currywurst-chinatown