CLOUDED OVER

Tonight's sunset is clouded over. That hasn't happened for a while. I expect the sky will just gradually darken and the trees will turn to silhouettes.

I'm feeling kind of sad. I don't know why. My eyes are itching with the first bloom of the hay fever season, a herald perhaps of what's to come over the next few weeks, making this nightly ritual more like torture. But it's not that.

I'm worried about a project I'm involved in, including at least three really difficult conversations. But it's not that either. I think that'll be okay.

I think I'm sad because I feel ancient. And the older a thing is, the more melancholy an atmosphere surrounds it. Time whispers in long strands.

Being naturally melancholy is doubly awful sometimes: joyful people might carry your solution, but they don't want to be around you. Well-meaners would like you to pull yourself together but don't seem to have grasped that the bits of you to grab hold of are already too heavy for the pulling. 

Meanwhile, you turn out to be your own worst enemy.

There's a break in the clouds now. Light blue sky between the purple, cracked and jagged like a rip in the universe. The birds have fallen silent and there are lights twinkling in the valley.

I must learn not to dwell in melancholy - it's a pathway that spirals into the woods. I carry joy, hidden deep within, and I can choose what I whisper to myself out here on this bench in this park.

Somewhere, beyond the clouds, the golden sun sinks majestically beneath the horizon - bold, beautiful and ancient, ready to rise the same tomorrow just as it always has.