I think we all enjoy a sunset. I’ve sat on enough southern beaches with gaggles of other humans waiting for the sun to drop below the horizon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not too long ago, on the west coast of Florida, we found a chair each evening for the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it’s the clapping that ruins it for me. Music in the background? I’m in. Applause? It feels odd to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve <\/a>never been somewhere where people clap for the sunrise. While clapping seems more appropriate to celebrate a new day, another chance, a new beginning, I have never witnessed it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sunrise is probably a more intimate event. We rarely wake up surrounded by hundreds of people, and that’s appreciated on many levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the most oft-discussed coffee talks at the cabin is whether facing east or west is better. To have a full-on frontal to sundown forces one to grab a boat or a canoe, motivate out into the lake, and turn around. I only make an effort when we have company; that’s not very often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consensus has been it’s better to wake up facing the sunrise, because it’s the best time for coffee. I know it’s not scientific, but it’s been the overall vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We didn’t select this spot for the camp. It was chosen long before we became the caretakers. A man named Cyrus West picked this spot in the late 1800s. I don’t know whether his name caused him to look toward the east from the west shore, but he did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is far more likely that he didn’t care which way he faced; like a real estate shopper in the twenty-first century, he grabbed what was available. I’m even more positive that he didn’t clap at sunset or sunrise. Getting to camp was hard enough; we surmise he was too tired to clap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years, from tearing down the old cabin with the structural underpinnings giving out from erosion and rot to this morning in a thirty-year-old model built by a slug and his friends, the sun in your face while it’s laid upon a pillow is a far better alarm clock than any ticking timepiece can provide\u2014electrified or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For one thing, it beckons you to rise. That’s not a bad thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I’m sorry if the photos seem a bit mundane and similar to the sunrises I’ve featured before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have never reused a sunrise photo. I take them sequentially because that’s how they come to me. They force me to rise and shine, so I don’t question Cyrus’s decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If he was here, I’d shake his hand. It’s so much better than applause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the Jagged Edge of America, I remain,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think we all enjoy a sunset. I’ve sat on enough southern beaches with gaggles of other humans waiting for the sun to drop below the horizon. Not too long ago, on the west coast of Florida, we found a chair each evening for the event. But it’s the clapping that ruins it for me….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76934,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-home-posts"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timcottonwrites.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}