Yesterday was one of those perfect days. It turned warm in the afternoon and sunny, promising a great sunset.
There were clouds in the west, the kind of clouds that add just that romantic bit of haziness to the air.
The sunset was as good as its promise.
Then an amazing thing happened. The clouds turned red across half the sky.
And as the dusk grew, the sky became as red as blood.
Last night’s sunset was exquisite. The sun’s moving north, and it’s now setting between Sachem Pond and the North Light. Streaks of clouds added vividness and color.
The sun will also, alas, be setting sometime soon over our tenure in this wonderful location. We bought this unique piece of land the year my daughter was born; we built this house twenty-four years ago; and we have been coming here whenever we could ever since. We love this place, and it will always be close to our hearts.
But yesterday the house officially went on the market. The listing agent is Ballard Hall Real Estate, and you can view the listing here.
I hope whoever buys this wonderful home will find that it is a home not just for your visits and your things but also for your heart and for some deep place that defines who you are.
We walked north and west from the Place Moulay Hassan, and soon–it was unmistakable–we were walking along the inside of the town’s eighteenth century walls. In particular, we were walking along the Skala Nord, between the two marked gates on the adjacent map. (This map, the best I could find online, is from the Web site of Riad Baladin.)
We passed through a gate and entered an area where the shops seemed to spring from the walls.
Indeed, as stretch of unopened shops clearly showed, they were, in fact, housed within the wall. I wonder what filled these arches when the walls were used as fortifications. Cannon ball storage? Barracks?
It was, it turns out, easy to reach the top of the wall, parts of which were still adorned with cannons.
Beyond lay a view of the modern city, and of an ocean that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the pleasant swimming beach near the fishing port.
Some sunsets are too beautiful to bear.
December 6, 2012
It’s finally happened–a sunset so photogenic that I can’t winnow the photos down to just two or three. Yesterday evening it pretty much didn’t matter which vaguely southwesterly direction I was looking in or how far down the sun actually was or how much zoomed in the camera was–everything was perfect!
See what I mean? But I’ve narrowed it down to only six more, and so without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present: December 5, 2012!
The astute reader may have noticed that yesterday’s post included sunsets from November 11, 12, and 14, but not November 13. While it’s not exactly accurate to say that there was no sunset on November 13, it’s entirely true that the sunset was not visible from my house here on Block Island. Instead, we had a day of glorious wind and clouds and even an occasional bit of rain as a cold front moved through. The swiftly moving and changing clouds danced with the light on ocean and lighthouse and winter landscape to create breathtaking vistas, all clouds and cold, as the day went on. And so… just to prove that I don’t post only sunsets, I present… November 13, 2012 on Block Island!
I’ve been on the island for several days now…really busy with work, writing and editing, and getting a lot accomplished, too. But I’ve begun to notice in myself–something not quite so obvious on shorter visits–that I am a real deep-in-the-gut sunset fanatic. (Well, duh! I can hear you saying. Eighty-eight posts of photographs on this thread, and you’re only just now noticing how many of them are sunsets? Photographs taken from the very same house?)
But listen, it isn’t just that I take all these photographs of sunsets, and it isn’t even that they’re all beautiful. It’s that every one of them is different. It’s the mystery of these sunsets that has me by the gut, that drives me up from my chair and makes me prowl around the house, camera in hand, heart beating rapidly, taking pictures from windows and decks and the path to the beach. I never know what each sunset is going to be like, in what way it’s going to be uniquely beautiful. I never even know from minute to minute how each one is going to change, how its beauty is going to evolve ten minutes from now, compared to now. Let me show you. Please allow me to present, in close proximity, the sunsets of November 11, November 12, and November 14, 2012.
And so I want to capture every minute of every sunset. I order my days around being home for this event. I have, dear readers, hundreds, maybe thousands, of sunset photographs in my archives, and every one of them is special. I am–I will confess it now–a sunset addict.
It’s been a month since we were on the island–and how good to be back again!
The house survived Sandy very well. There were just a few loose roof shingles, and yesterday Dan climbed up there and nailed them back again.
Then…a lot earlier than it used to be, and a lot farther to the south…there was another glorious sunset.
Life is good, here in the island. I’m glad to be here all this week.
After a long, hot summer, it’s great to be back at our home on Block Island again. It’s warm, humid, cloudy, a bit rainy today, and beautiful. As always.
The sunsets the last two days have been lovely.
As always.
Here’s September 2, 2012.
I’m assuming you all saw my nifty new tripod in the immediately previous post, with which I took this last photo!
Sunset, May 31.
Another long near-solstice day. When you’re this far north, sunset takes a long time. Which gives the photographer many views and angles to choose from, lots of photos to take, and abiding gratitude that she no longer has to pay for film.
7pm
8pm