Leaping against Def^i Sunsets something about the smell of a Delhi sunset. Sometimes, in winter, there is a whiff of coming frost that eeks over the land with the downing of the sun. In the spring,
There's
Delhi sunsets smell entirely different-blossomy. Whether pear, peach, almond, or apple blossoms, the dying day, closing in a sigh of sun,
is
complicated.
dizzlingly fragrant.
They
Summer
sunsets are
aroma of ripening
are rich with the
more fruit~the
smell of expectation. They smell like sun screen and algaed canal water. They also smell like tractor exhaust, wet puppies,
and Daddy's sunburned sweat. But
there's
something
else.
Year
round, Delhi sunsets carry the smell of something indescribable.
Something slippery and unpinnable. I don't know why I am compelled to remember the sunsets of my childhood home. Now when I visit, I am awed by the silhouette of the eucalyptus trees against the emblazoned sky. I doubt that I was so enthralled with sunsets as a child, but now they grip me, amaze me. Something about the earth preparing for
its
nightly rest quiets me.
The
air cools
turns the orchards a golden green.
and the waning
light
Even our double- wide,
manufactured home looks like a castle in this magical light. I once witnessed our neighbor's peach orchard, pink with blossom, just as the sun slipped behind the purple Western mountains. Then, the whole world seemed a smear of pink and gold, and in that moment I believed that I too was a beautiful and divine as the scene before me. In Delhi, sunsets carry hope. "I think the pears are almost
Daddy
says. "Maybe tomorrow." One more sunset, one more down, and harvest can begin. Enough sunsets and my mom can freeze peaches and make applesauce. Enough sunsets and I ripe."
can
be.
My family takes walks at sunset, or so we did once upon a time.
I
walk behind Daddy, jumping
with
my bare
shoe
prints,
feet.
and as
into his
shoed footprints
My toes make quick, round O's in his sandy I
jump along behind him,
waiting for
him
to
I marvel at how big Daddy's feet are. We walk while Lizzie, our energetic Queensland, tries to overcome her smallness. She leaps until she becomes a small, dark silhouette leaping against the evening sky. We are all
take the next step, like this
