CH4 One Certain Sunset

One Certain Sunset relates a story in which McGhee (age 35) is on a business trip of some kind to Tucson and seeks to escape one afternoon for a little “me” time. Someone has told McGhee about a nice park west of town where he should go to see a sunset, and he sets out to do just that.

In 1999, I was doing a project in Tucson and happened to stumble upon that park. I’m not sure I hiked up “the” Tucson Mountain in question (if there is even one), but I did have an experience like McGhee did. Before I go further, I’d like to give a shout-out to Tim Steller, a columnist for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson (and brother of a friend from college) for some essential backstory on the park.

Tucson Mountain Park, Tucson, AZ

The evening was much as described in the story: ideal warmth but not hot, a slightly dusty sky that permitted looking directly at the sun more than usual, and I was alone. It was perfect.

Sometime just before that trip I’d seen a movie called Swimming to Cambodia, which features an oral performance by the late Spaulding Gray. In it he relates the filming of The Killing Fields, in which he appeared, and his travel-desire to find at least one “perfect moment” on trips. These perfect moments were a revelation to me: until seeing this film, I had no word for it, but had found I do the same thing. The objective (and I use that word with as little force as possible) is to slip into a moment in time and experience serenity. This is one of those things that sounds incredibly obvious (living in the moment is such a cliché these days), but until I heard his description, I don’t think I really understood it.

In the course of my life, I can recall only two or three such moments. Another had come for me (earlier in my story than McGhee’s) in western Montana one morning, driving in the sunrise back from Alaska. This other moment is described later in the novel (CH 22: Kite Weather) in the company of Kate (though I had no such company when I had it).

This notion of living in the moment is an important theme throughout the novel, and learning to do it with another person was a key inflection point for McGhee. I won’t ruin the ending for you, but this takes on special significance in light of the Epilogue. To know what I’m talking about, you’ll just have to read the whole thing for yourself.