There are endless stories in a sunset---
As many and varied as those who are privileged to stand as witness before the beauty of a day as it slips below the horizon of night.
It is as much for those who toil away anonymously in far away places, taking but a few moments away from the task at hand to enjoy a bit of splendor, as it is for the random motorist who, weary from the days travels yet endeavoring towards his next stop, pulls off on the side of a highway at the very top of Texas, and amid the roaring slipstream of innumerable passing vehicles, thinks a waiting train cast against the glory of the High Plains sunset will make a worthy memory on an SD card, one he can take back to his home country and relish the memory of at will.
There are stories of chances taken and coincidence; of things that fate has a gentle hand in; of Intersection Angels who step across a path but for a brief moment in the continuum of things, altering forever the outcome of any number of seemingly random occurrences.
It is the story of car keys slipping from a pocket, to be swallowed forever within the rattling thicket of autumn-dried summer cypress and Russian Thistle that had not yet broken off at the base and tumbled on the winds that blow across the Panhandle of Texas.
There are stories about life happening, and how it challenges our character in how we deal with it.
There are stories about humanity, of the brotherhood and sisterhood of earthly citizenship and how we share a common roof, and how the air that a young man in Italy breathes is the same air that I do. We both stood in the chill wind of a beautiful Texas sunset and admired the glory of it all.
I would have done the same thing in Tuscany.
We broke bread and enjoyed perhaps the worst chicken fried steak in Texas, coffee from a truck stop, and seemingly endless calls to and from the incompetent staff at a bottom-of-the-barrel rental car company.
It was a modern-day imagining of the word “Tejas”---
The story of strangers becoming friends.
Life in its truest form exists beyond the posturing of saber-rattlers and those who seek to add more zeroes after the comma in their bank accounts.
It is the warmth of a handshake that brings continents and generations closer to one another.
It transcends borders and lines drawn on a map; makes oceans irrelevant.
It is a rejoining of humanity in a world that seeks to strip us of it.
While there are many good days and many bad days, sometimes we need humble reminders that every day is a gift worth living.
This one is among the very best that I have ever had the privilege to live.
Buon viaggio, amico mio.
Grazie!
---RAM
Rick Malo©2025
Thank you!