My mother Betty was a landscape artist. Thanks to her, we spent a lot of time captivated by what was going on outside. I now know that she taught me first to look and then to see. One of the things we saw was sunsets. In her quest to teach us about beauty, she had two helpers with sunsets.

First, on the days that Mom had the car (remember those days when families had one car!) we went down to pick Daddy up from the carpet mill where he was a dye chemist at 4:30. We drove directly West. For some parts of the year the sun and clouds would be inescapable.

Second, our dining room faced west. Mom taught me a lot about stopping whatever you were doing to look at the sunset. This served me well when I lived in the Oakland hills and would watch the sun travel its path between South San Francisco to Mt. Tam and back, offering a different sunset delight every day. The Gods of the Bay Area must love sunset, because it was often the clearest part of the day.

Deb wound up with both Mom’s sunset paintings. We all visit them when we visit her. The painting above is Mom’s view out our diningroom window. So it won’t surprise you that I find a joyful Peace in sunset… or that I stop and gulp to gawk at the beauty.