Stillness

Tonight’s sunset wasn’t the boldest I have ever seen.
It didn’t streak across the sky in wild ribbons of fire or paint the clouds in colors that demand you stop everything just to feel alive. But after a week swallowed by grey, a week of barren fields and frozen winds and a world that looked like it had forgotten how to breathe, this small burst of color felt like a hand reaching out of the cold.

The kind of cold we had today doesn’t lend itself to beauty.
It bites through coats and gloves and makes your eyes water the second you step outside. It turns every inhale into a sting and makes even short walks feel like a punishment. The days have been long and heavy, the kind where the sky barely changes and everything feels muted or asleep.

That kind of winter wears on you.
It settles into the quiet places.
It makes you wonder if the sun remembers how to rise for you at all.

So when it finally pushed through tonight, just a thin line of orange pressed against the horizon, just enough pink and gold to soften the clouds, I felt something loosen inside me. Not joy. Not relief. More like a reminder. A small, almost trembling insistence that even the bleakest stretches eventually break.

There is something tender about sunsets like this.
The quiet ones.
The ones that don’t announce themselves.
The ones that look like they are offering whatever little light they have left, hoping it will be enough.

It hit me harder than I expected.
Maybe because everything has felt so dim lately.
Maybe because I am tired in the way winter makes you tired, tired in the way that comes from carrying invisible things for too long.
Maybe because every day has felt like it blends into the next, all of them silver and silent and cold.

But tonight, the sky remembered color.

It was not spectacular.
It was not loud.
But it was present.

And presence alone can feel like a miracle after so many days of nothing but grey. After so many hours of wind that cuts through you and fields that look lifeless and mornings that never fully brighten.

I stayed longer than I needed to, watching the last thin glow disappear behind the line of trees. The air stung my face. The cold settled deeper. But it felt worth it.

Because even if tomorrow returns to grey, even if the frozen world closes in again, at least I had this one moment. This one quiet offering of beauty. This one reminder that winter does not get the final word.

For a brief moment, color pushed through the cold.
For a brief moment, the world softened.
For a brief moment, I remembered that I am still here too.

If you’re wondering what you’re looking at, these are star trails.

They form when a camera stays still long enough to notice what we usually rush past. It holds its breath, holds its place, and lets the Earth turn beneath it. We’re the ones moving, but the long exposure makes it look like the stars are the ones wandering, sweeping their light across the night like they have somewhere gentle to be.

I think that’s why I love them.
Because they prove something I keep forgetting.
That movement doesn’t always look like progress.
Sometimes it looks like staying in one place long enough for the truth to catch up to you.

What I can’t stop staring at is the reflection in the water.

That doubled sky.
That echo of light.
Like the world was so full that it overflowed and spilled itself into the stillness until even the dark had to carry something bright.

There is something almost painfully tender about that.
How the sky didn’t shrink itself or dim itself or apologize for being too much.
It simply became two skies instead of one.

And maybe that is what hit me.
The reminder that even in silence, even when my days feel stuck or small or swallowed by their own shadows, things are shifting.
Healing is shifting.
Grief is shifting.
I am shifting.
Not loudly. Not obviously. But undeniably.

The water didn’t move, but it mirrored the stars anyway.
And some days I feel like that.
Quiet, unmoving, like nothing is changing at all.
But maybe I am reflecting things I can’t see yet.
Maybe the parts of me that feel still are actually catching light I didn’t know was reaching for me.

I stayed out by the water longer than I meant to.
The grass was cold.
The night smelled like winter trying to arrive too early.
And I felt that familiar ache in my chest, the kind that comes from wanting more than I can name, from missing things I can’t explain, from holding hope and exhaustion in the same trembling hand.

But the stars kept tracing their slow arcs across the sky.
They didn’t hurry.
They didn’t need to.
They simply kept going, one thin line at a time, drawing proof of their persistence in the dark.

I think I needed to see that.

Because lately I have been feeling like I am barely moving.
Like I am suspended between worlds, South Dakota and Virginia, past and future, memory and whatever comes next.
But the camera caught movement my eyes couldn’t.
And maybe that is true for my life too.

Maybe I am changing in ways I won’t recognize until later.
Maybe this season is a long exposure.
Slow, quiet, honest.
Capturing shifts I won’t understand until I step back and see the trails.

Maybe you are in one of those seasons too.

If you are, I hope you remember this.
Stillness is not stagnation.
Quiet is not failure.
And even on the nights when you feel like you are holding your breath, the sky is still moving, and so are you.

The Stars Take Note

Color At The Edge Of A Barren World

The Night The Sky Couldn’t Hold Itself