Life can be very, very blue until suddenly it is not. I often think about those winter mornings when it was always dark and I was always cold, rushing to places I didn’t want to be and worrying I was too old when I was really very young. There weren’t too many good things about those mornings – being half-asleep and fighting for the spot by the door on the skytrain – except for the sky.
The sky was the one thing that made getting up at 6am worth it. It was always black and terrifying when I left the house, stepping over puddles as I walked to the bus stop, but by the time the skytrain carried me over the bridge, dawn was within reach and I began to think that maybe the day wouldn’t be so bad after all. If it was a really good day, the sky would turn pink and even though the strangers on the skytrain next to me didn’t say a word and I didn’t either, we all looked at the sunrise and felt like we were the lucky ones.
It’s almost mid-May now and though it is not dark, it is dreary. For most of the morning and afternoon, the sky is gray. It rains. It looks like November except that it isn’t as cold. Everything outside is greener, brighter, softer, more alive. By some strange twist of fate, when evening rolls around, the sky turns pink, even if it’s only for a brief moment before it is swallowed up again by the darkness. But even the briefest moment of pink sky is something. It is tender respite from a long day; gentle relief from failure, exhaustion, waiting, wasting.
Pink skies are everything I wish would last forever. I stare a little too long, a little too intensely. I take too many pictures and tuck them away for safekeeping. I stretch out my fingers, clinging with fervour to the last pastel hue as they inevitably die and fade, despite my best efforts. I am always trying to make things last a lifetime and I am always defeated. It is very much a pity that things end before you’re ready, that their endings catch you off guard, that they end in the first place when you wish they never would – but it is a miracle we have things we cherish, it is a miracle we have bright and silly things we love so much we wish to have them, always. And it is a miracle that despite the rain, we have pink skies.
Things I Learned Growing Up 