buttermilk evenings

People are a nostalgic lot.

Even those of us who hold to the English virtue of "sentiment without sentimentality" often steer our ships onto the rocks answering its siren call.

The good folks at Facebook are fully aware of our vulnerability. That is one reason they create granfalloons celebrating some wholely-manufactured anniversary. "Two years friends with someone you really do not know."

Sometimes Facebook hits a home-run with its pandering. Yesterday this photograph popped up on my home page as "Most Popular Photograph of 2009."

In fact, it is one of my favorite photographs of any year. Certainly my favorite sunset photograph. It was once my computer splash screen.

I remember the day I shot it. I was living on the beach in Villa Obregon at the time and had been out for a walk. What caught my attention was what my friend Ruette Parks calls "buttermilk skies." Those clouds that look like curds afloat in curdled milk.

As the sun started to set, the clouds moved into position as if they were replicating the rays of the setting sun. With most sunsets, photographers never quite know when the colors and display will be at their best. Smart photographers will shoot a series and choose the best.

With this one, there was no doubt. I instinctively knew when it was just right. And I took the shot. Just one.

I am glad Facebook reminded me of the photograph. I have an archive of all of my digital photographs -- with a backup. But, somehow, the original of this particular sunset disappeared years ago.

Maybe that is just as well. Sunsets, like all of our life experiences, reside in our memories. That is why I could recognize the photograph as being mine.

And it is those memories that make us who we are. Even when they do skirt close to the border of nostalgia.