Colored Comfort

Today was a day. Not a bad day, just a day. I started work this morning--8am, which means going to the gym at 6am, which means waking up before that--yeah, it wasn't as easy as I had pictured it, but I can do it. Plus, it only lasts until December, and it's a little cash, so who can complain? But I do have this nasty cold and stomach thing and throat deal and headache, and it's Halloween--for me, that's like being sick on Christmas! LAME! So here I am, cuddled up in bed at 10:00pm on a Friday night but you know, oh well, what can you do. As my literature teacher says, it's a good thing I don't have a gun. :P You know, there are good days, and there are bad days, and then there are just those days that have no language equivalent. Today was one of those days.

This evening I looked up at the sky and smiled without meaning to--I love watching the sky change, it's so peaceful. I remember a wonderful sunset that completely turned my day around. It was, of course, on my lovely trip to London. :)

After a long bus ride and a billion stops (all good mind you, just tiring) I was so ready for some rest; when we arrived at the hostel in York I didn't care if there were bugs, spiders, or a raccoon living in my bed, I just wanted to sleep. Poor Tony (our coach driver) wasn't feeling well, and a bus of obnoxious girls doesn't help, so when he was trying to park he totally took out the side of the building. I felt awful, but he took it pretty well. I honestly was just glad to stop for the night.

I got to my room only to discover that the water heater was one of our roommates (and of course right next to my bed), which made it even hotter than our hostel in Ambleside, if that's even possible! If the heat wasn't bad enough, it was the heated pressure of the air--it really messes with that lovely head of mine, and within seconds I was in a delusional migraine and really losing my mind. To top it off, the girls weren't exactly being all that kind, and mix that with a large dose of exhaustion = not a good thing. Dear Katy found me out in the hall distressed, so she made the executive decision to put me in their room (they had an extra bed thank goodness!). It was nice to feel wanted (this trip to the North really made me reevaluate my relationships with my roomies here), not to mention to get away from that lousy water heater furnace thing! But I was admittedly still extremely frustrated with life in general, so I did the only thing I could do--I left.

Yeah, sometimes that's what I do--sometimes you just have to get some fresh air to clear the mind and body, and let me tell you--it SOOOOO helps! I took a walk around York to calm down and meditate; I ended up spending most of my time on the bridge over the river, watching the sun set in its entirety. God is in the sun I've decided, because I have seen sunrises and sunsets, and they are beautiful but mostly because there is just something about them that heals. There is some strange, hidden comfort to be found in a sunset, just watching the colors naturally bleed together, morphing and changing imperceptibly yet dramatically--it's quite the experience if you really take the time to think about it.

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." ~Rabindranath Tagore

"When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator." ~Mahatma Gandhi

"If your eyes are blinded with your worries, you cannot see the beauty of the sunset." ~Jiddu Krishnamurti

Good night.