What A Wonderful World

Life has a lovely way of pulling you out of the swamp. Just as you feel you are beginning to sink, your twisting, turning and struggling proving entirely futile, something utterly simple and unexpected happens along your way to help you out of it. Sometimes it is as un-poetic as a good friend that makes you laugh and sometimes it really seems like God's sense of sublime puts on a show just for you.

Yesterday was just another day that I filled up with busy doings of not too much consequence, hoping for some meaning out of the total or atleast no time to think about the lack of it. When it came time to leave, I zipped my dark winter jacket on and pulled on the parka-esque hood. The wind these past days has almost knocked me off my feet. I set off in a brisk stride to exit the maze that I must go through to get out of my lab, hoping to have as minimal exposure to the nasty chill as possible. Wrapped tightly around my neck, my red woollen scarf was nearly choking me but there is hardly a choice there. It's near-suffocation or pneumonia. Choosing to risk the former for it's relative transience, my chin tucked in and my eyes fixed to the ground and my mind in some far-away place and ears plugged in with some music if only to isolate yet another sense from the rest of the world , I neared the tinted sliding doors that finally lead outside. I remember thinking how pointless they were in the land of clouds and rain.

I stepped out and instinctively waited a second for my eyes to adjust from the fluorescent, energy-saving whitewash brightness to the dark only to realise that the sun was still up. The sun was still up! I felt this lovely, warmth suddenly wash over me. It wasn't from the sun, I'll tell you that. "Where has all the IR gone? - Long time passing" is my favourite refrain. But I felt ecstatic.
So much so that rather excitedly punched my friend in sheer delight, yanked out the headphones and I hopped and skipped and jumped and flipped and laughed out loud. He was almost embarrassed by me I think.

That's when I saw it. A giant bubble of flaming orange about 30 degrees off the horizon at the end of a long canal. I jumped for joy. It really was so beautiful. I can't describe to you how rich that flame was and how there was red and yellow and orange and all sorts of colours all mixed up and yet so distinctly observable. I knew it was meant for me. I just knew it. It felt so private because there was hardly a soul around and it was just me and my friend and two people scurrying by on a bicycle with hardly a clue as to what they were missing.

And we just sat there in silence. For twenty minutes, in the cold, sepia evening, I felt free and happy and reconnected. With God. I watched as the sun slid further down until it seemed to sit on the water at the end of the canal. God, it was the so entirely beautiful that I can't stop from saying it over and over again. One of those memories, I know I always want to keep. All I could think of then was how grateful I felt for 'the sign'. To not be overwhelmed by the transitory, to have faith and remind myself of all there is to see, to do and to look forward to. Such goodness and beauty would be wasted if I let what now seemed to be such trifling troubles interfere with my enjoyment of all these magical moments however fleeting.

As dusk crept over and I emerged from my reverie, I found myself grinning ever so widely. Unable to resist resorting to that happy cliche , I rode back home, with a smile on my face, singing softly... "I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night and I think to myself....."