On the Edge of March

There are some evenings that do not merely end the day — they curtsy.

Yesterday, the sun did not slip quietly away. It lingered like a performer who knows the audience is watching. It poured gold across the water as though it had pockets full of treasure and no intention of saving any of it for tomorrow.

And there I was, seated on the sand with my little traveling palette, attempting to keep up.

The ocean was softer at this hour — reflective, almost companionable. The waves rolled in as if they had witnessed the entire day and were now humming its summary back to shore. The light shifted every few moments — honey into amber, amber into rose, rose into lavender.

But what you do not see in this photograph — what the lens cannot quite capture — is the man sitting just to my left.

The one I prayed for.

The one who keeps me laughing every single day, even when I am certain I am far too serious for such nonsense.

The one who supports my dreams with a quiet steadiness — never grasping for the spotlight, but building it, holding it, adjusting it so I can stand in it without fear.

While I chased the sun with my brush, he simply sat beside me. Present. Steady. Content to watch the horizon and occasionally glance over to see what colors were winning.

There is something profoundly romantic about that kind of love.

Not dramatic declarations.
Not grand gestures.
ust a shared sunset and a willingness to sit still together while the world performs its final act of the day.

Watercolor, I have decided, is very much like marriage.

You bring your pigment. You bring your water. You bring your best intentions. And then — you surrender a little. You let things blend. You allow space for softness. You accept that perfection was never the point. What emerges is not control, but collaboration.

The palette in my lap looked like a tiny sunset of its own — jewel tones deepened by the day’s use. Blues mingling into indigo. Yellows warmed to something almost sacred. A small universe of color resting in a metal tin on white sand.

And as the final sliver of sun lowered itself into the horizon, I felt that familiar March stirring in my spirit.

March is here.

She has arrived with her wind and her lists and her insistence that things be prepared.

This will be a month of wedding plans and ribbon and flowers. A month of watching my daughter step toward her own sunset-lit beginning. A month of doctors’ appointments I have postponed and closets that have grown far too comfortable holding what no longer serves us.

A month of cleaning out the old.

Of saying goodbye to what is finished.
Of making room for what is forming.

There will be a cruise to the Virgin Islands with family — laughter echoing across decks, salty air in our hair, stories told long into the night. There will be celebration. There will be responsibility. There will be moments of tenderness and perhaps a few of overwhelm.

But if this sunset reminded me of anything, it is this:

Light lingers.

Even in busy months.
Even in preparatory seasons.
Even in doctor’s offices and overstuffed closets.

The day does not end in chaos. It ends in color.

And perhaps that is the gift of March.

She is not simply a month on the calendar. She is a threshold.

A reminder that before great celebrations come small, faithful preparations. Before blossoms come clearing. Before beginnings come quiet sunsets where you sit beside the one you prayed for and realize — with sand in your toes and paint on your fingers — that you are already living the answered prayer.

So I packed up my palette, now messier and infinitely more beautiful, and walked back with him along the shoreline.

The sun had slipped away.

But the glow remained.

And somehow, that feels like enough.