Clouds at sunset

Textured sky
Delray Beach, December 2009

Please note: This photo completes our "Into the Clouds" theme (head here for more.) Thematic Photographic kicks off a new theme tomorrow (Thursday) - so feel free to come back after 7:00 p.m. (Eastern) to see what it is. Eventually, I suspect I'll get the launch date back to Wednesday. In the meantime, thanks for your patience.

There's a certain sense of peace associated with the precious few moments when the sun slips below the horizon and settles in for the night. There's often a softness to the light, a feeling of resonant quiet associated with simply standing there and watching it happen. It never ceases to make me feel small, to make me toss out all the nagging idiocies that bug me during the day and replace them all with something decidedly simpler.

Every time I find myself immersed in moments like this, I silently remind myself that I don't need to wait for a perfect sunset to feel this way. Come to think of it, neither does any of us.

Your turn: Now that we've been sticking our heads into the clouds for the better part of the past week, I'd like to ask you why clouds seem to attract our attention as much as they do.