Sunsets and silhouettes

Bobby Reyes 

Times Staff Writer

There’s something magical about the final burn of the day that makes me inhale just one more time as the sun sets behind the Palisades, creating a dark, shadowy silhouette.

I’ve known this day was coming for some time now. I’ve even littered nearly every one of my columns over the past six months with riddles conveying various messages (this column is no exception). Perhaps it was a test of sorts to see if readers actually read in three dimensions, or just two.

Regardless, now the time for overt conversation has come — yes, I am leaving Gunnison. And it’s bittersweet.  

When I arrived in Gunnison, and in this position, I wasn’t fully sure what to expect, but one thing I can finally admit is that I never previously had any interest in baseball. Now, let me finish my thought before you jump on me for admitting that.

Things changed at the 2014 district title game in Alamosa where the Cowboys faced a tough Maroons squad. I had followed Gunnison High School (GHS) baseball the entire season, and it took me out of the valley with the hope that I’d capture a courageous win, or even a courageous loss. The latter happened, and I felt a strange irony — when the Cowboys lost 6-4 in the seventh inning, my heart sank just like every GHS fan.

I cared about a baseball game? What? I was confused on the two-hour drive home, and when it rained the next day I found the weather to be a reflection of my feelings. Perhaps it wasn’t actually the game that I became emotionally attached to. It was the athletes, it was the coaches, it was the team — it was the community that was bound together like a family.

As I’m sure any passionate sports writer will admit, when you’re doing your job right, you’re swept into a passionate affair. It didn’t matter what sport. As long as there were valley ties, I was a fan.

While I have no kids of my own, I felt the connection that most coaches and teachers feel for their athletes and students — I pulled for their happiness, and was elated when they succeeded, and heartbroken when they failed. I’ll admit, the rollercoaster of emotions was taxing. (My wife knows this best, having seen me fret first-hand.)

Some nights I’d come home raving about a game or a match, and some nights I’d come home dejected after covering a loss. There were many sleepless nights and stressful weekends where I nearly lost my mind running all over town in attempts to cover everyone.

Despite the rollercoaster, I kept on because I cared — I wanted to create something that would inspire in the same way I was inspired.

But like the athletes I covered over the past three-and-a-half years, I’ve come to the realization that it’s time to move on to a new challenge, which is what brought me here in the first place. The work of a sports writer often relies on delivering analogies, so I’ll offer up a few:

When a runner breaks 20 minutes in the 5k, they don’t stop there. They push on to a faster time. Likewise, when the football team reaches the playoffs one year but falls short of a title, the goal is to get further the following year. Winning the same race over and over again is nice, but in order to achieve personal growth you must continue to challenge yourself.

This is why upon arriving as — just — a writer, I took to photography (my experience with a camera before moving here was limited to what was on my iPhone), then videography (producing those chaotic Monday Morning Sports Recaps stole many Sundays), then marketing and advertising (I still laugh at myself for coming up with those ridiculous Recap ads), then the Gunnison Valley Outdoor Guide (which I discovered to not be my drink of choice); I took to whatever whet my creative appetite.

Now it’s time to move on to my newest and most enduring challenge: finishing the book I’ve been writing in my rare spare time over the past year.

This side project has been a secret of mine for some time now, but it’s my next big challenge. The same way that every athlete or team I’ve covered yearns to win state, conference or nationals, I’ve always wanted to write a book — it’s my Everest.

So, it is in these finals words I bid the Gunnison community a fond farewell. I owe a huge thank you to a lot of people in this community for helping me  — originally an outsider — feel at home. For a kid who grew up moving every two years as part of a military family, feeling at home is rare. You’ve been my home for the past three-and-a-half years, and you’ll always have a piece of my heart.

But the sun has set on my time here, and I’ll inhale the fresh mountain air and stare at the mountainous silhouette to the west just once more.

To leave you on one final thought, I’ll quote Thomas Wolfe. While I’ve always had a disdain for using someone else’s words to express myself, on this occasion I can’t out-do Wolfe, who said: “To lose the earth you know, for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth — whereon the pillars of this earth are founded, towards which the conscience of the world is tending — a wind is rising, and the rivers flow.”

Now, I ask you — the reader — one more time, what was I really trying to say?

(Bobby Reyes can be reached at 970.641.1414 or bobbyreyes@gunnisontimes.com.)