Celebrating the Sunrise and the Sunset Phenomenon

Volume 1, Issue No. 46

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . .

 Our latest as of Wednesday, May 27, 2020 

~ The arrival of spring and its quiet transformation into summer has highlighted the daily phenomenon many people take for granted, that is, the sunrise in the east and sunset in the west. Peeking through the window facing east, the everyday occurrence is an amazing spectacle in itself. The sun radiates in a blast of tertiary colors - yellow-orange, red-orange, red-purple, and blue-purple before it bursts into a ball of brightness.

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PANORAMA OF A GLORIOUS MORNING

The Amazing Spectacle of Sunrises

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

Sunrise, sunset

                                                                        Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly fly the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears

                               - From Fiddler on the Roof

TORONTO - The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. This daily phenomenon is celebrated in songs, movies, stories, poems; it's romanticized, worshipped, and honoured in different cultures in many ways since time immemorial.

Jose Rizal's opening line in Mi Ultimo Adios (My Last Farewell) pays homage to the sun, thus: "Adiós, Patria adorada, región del sol querida . . . " (Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed . . . ).

As winter departs and gives way to spring, and very soon, summer, the sun cajoles us to go outdoors and feel its majesty. By the way, this year's spring is the earliest we had in 124 years, coming as it did on March 19, a day or two early for much of the last century, according to The Old Farmer's Almanac.

In a few weeks, spring will be gone. Summer sets in starting June 21 through most of August, although unofficially, the season has already begun this week. Because summer has the most daylight of any season, every community in Toronto hold their events in parks, public spaces, and streets.

Where I grew up, the setting sun attracts countless watchers awed and startled by the magical turning of the blue skies into orange, purple, a combination of both, until it disappears from the horizon.

The sunset had not been of much interest to me earlier in life. Having been born in a Cavite fishing village on the shores of Manila Bay, villagers regularly see the sun sinking at dusk into the tadpole-shaped Corregidor Island across it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corregidor).

As a journalist based in Manila many years later, colleagues in the foreign press corps kept telling me it was stunning to watch the sun go down in Manila Bay, preferably in the Malate area, only because we could easily walk the distance to our favourite watering hole, the Cafe Adriatico.

The coffee shop/restaurant was the go-to place to wind down for foreign journalists, many of them friends of the owner, who were in town for the unfolding events. There we would binge on food and drinks while comparing notes about news coverage. (http://ljcrestaurants.com.ph/restaurants/cafe-adriatico/).

It was the 1980s and the Philippines, still under President Ferdinand Marcos' martial rule since September 1972, was a powderkeg waiting to explode. It didn't take long before everything came to a head. Manila, the capital, was in great peril.  

With the assassination of Senator Benigno Aquino at the airport in August 1983, the fuse had been ignited. Two-and-a-half years later, in February 1986, his widow, Corazon Aquino, took power as president after the People Power Revolution kicked Ferdinand Marcos out and installed her. A series of coups d'état then followed.

I digress a little bit, sorry. This article is about the sunrise and sunset. Well, part of my appreciation for something like the sunset has been shaped and sustained by what I heard, and repeatedly told, and witnessed about the routine of a changing time. 

From birth to adulthood, I grew up witnessing the day's transformation. It was ironic that despite the early exposure, I ignored, or failed, to see what foreign eyes pleased them. Perhaps its regularity had benumbed my senses.

Not until I moved to California in the mid-90s did I realize how much I missed such a mundane thing. In the town of La Jolla overlooking the Pacific Ocean, couples commemorated the sunset with glasses of wine. (Videos at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JHHCnYhjfM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0Ob8ioCn0M).

People either drive or walk to the beachfront with their beverage and a bag of hors d'oeuvres and wait for the hour. The fading glow of an orange-colored sun climbing down in the red-and-purple horizon was a perfect setting to turn romantic, kiss, and hold hands while sipping wine.

Now in Toronto, the landscape has changed dramatically. Skyscrapers and the endless gentrification of many areas have managed to hide what otherwise would be stunning views of the sunset. 

There's one place though where one can watch it with some expense - at Toronto Island. (Video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umN4fk3cyPo). Farther on, Muskoka, Ontario, which is 158 kilometers from Toronto, is a good alternative.

So with so much time and money (which I don't have) involved in chasing sunsets, I've settled for sunrises - the bright birthing of a new day - for free and in the comfort of home. It's as magical.

The everyday spectacle of sunrise has practically pegged my waking hours to when the sun's first purplish glow hits the window of my home office. The towering buildings and tall trees in the quiet neighbourhood add to an enchanting panorama of a glorious morning.

To wake up at just about the time the sun would touch the face with its splendor is something I've come to expect, falling for it in the process, and treasuring every moment it radiates its freshness.

Through these months, I've recorded in both photographs and videos the sun emerging from treelines and buildings and up to the moment it scatters its energy to herald a new day. Its appearance was erratic, understandably, during the last winter.

But from the start of spring, my visual record has been fairly consistent. The sunrises of the season are natural phenomena worth keeping. And to think, watching them from my bedroom window, and capturing them in film, is a priceless luxury. (Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved).