When we set our clocks back on November 3 – and it seems to take some of us longer to adjust than we recall from earlier years, we admit – the sunset seems to come sooner here in the plaza of The Shops at Sea Pines Center.

Golfers and tennis players hereabouts usually have good things to say about Daylight Savings Time and are sorry to leave it behind. Others, it seems, are not so sure.

Complaining with a sense of humor, somebody posted a doctored photo of Stonehenge having its monumental slabs rearranged for the time change. (Stonehenge was more about dates than times, historians tell us, but we like the joke nevertheless.)

The Spectacular Show

Here among The Shops at Sea Pines Center, one of the benefits we enjoy when we set the clocks back is that our sunset puts on its show at about 5:30 in the evening. For lots of folks, the approach of sundown is perhaps its most beautiful, among all the lovely views of the plaza here. Our western horizon is the copper-patina-shaded rooftop of Lowcountry Produce that’s poised above the western end of the plaza.

We get to see the sun dissolve into the horizon beyond Calibogue Sound when we visit our near neighbors at Harbour Town. Even here in the plaza, we get all the colors – salmon, red-grapefruit, and orange. And we get the afterglow, the way a seaside sundown seems to color every molecule of air for a magic hour.

Where Time Passes Differently

The pace of the plaza, in the midst of the Shops at Sea Pines Center, is something people feel easily, instinctively. The Gullah folks who were on this sea island before us used the word “peruse” to mean a special pace of walking, the step of unhurried attention and pleasant passage.

The Center can surely accommodate a purposeful, efficient visit – it was designed and sited for convenience from the beginning – but it does offer the other option for those with time to enjoy it. The pace they called “peruse” seems to whisper its invitation to enjoy your time in The Shops at Sea Pines Center.

Even the Air Seems Gentler

In the plaza’s embrace, the very air seems to get gentler, and with that influence people come here to connect as well as to acquire and provide. Our friends who are seasonal residents say they come here first when they return to their Sea Pines home, because this is where they’ll hear quickly what’s going on now and what they missed while they were away. Visitors – at least those fortunate enough to benefit from inside information – come to The Shops at Sea Pines Center to get the lay of the land, to find a feel for what to do in this fortunate community, with their precious vacation time.

For our fellow Sea Pines residents, The Center is a not-so-hidden secret for enjoying the best of what they chose, when they decided that the life of Sea Pines was how they wanted to spend their days. Indeed, it was – and is – right in the middle of the vision that became America’s favorite island. Welcome to The Shops at Sea Pines Center.