Last week was a particularly difficult one for me, and I felt incredibly drained throughout it. Although I think that as a whole I am a happy person who bounces back from a bad day fairly quickly, there were a few days last week that were harsher than even the routine bad day, and I felt that my (admittedly rather sensitive) spirit was taking a beating.
On Tuesday, I had an errand to run after work that required me to drive about thirty miles during rush hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I was already dead tired after a very frustrating day, and by the time I inched my car forward on the freeway towards home I was outright exhausted. The one thing that made the drive bearable was that the sun was out, and the weather was brisk and not too cold. I was able to drive with my windows down and my sunroof open. To my left, the sun was slowly dropping in the sky, and I had a sudden urge to try and find a place to sit and watch the sunset. One of my favorite places for such an activity is the marina in Everett, but with the heavy traffic there was no way I was going to make it there in time.
I decided to try getting to the Port of Edmonds, which was a lot closer. I made it just in time to see the sun disappearing behind the mountains, as a ferry boat sailed past on its way to Kingston. I found a bench to sit on and just watched the rapidly-changing sky, breathing in the wonderful smell of salt sea air.

As I sat on the bench, the temperature rapidly dropping and the sky darkening, I felt overcome with a calm, peaceful feeling. Sunsets on Puget Sound, or near any water really, do that to me. I felt all the tension of the day draining out of me, replaced by a quiet happiness. I thought about how lucky I am to live in this beautiful place with its brilliant sunsets.
I want to live somewhere with a view of the sunset over the water. I don’t care if it’s a house, or a condo, or even a decrepit apartment….I just want that view. I want to live somewhere that allows me to look out my window, or step outside, and see the sunset and smell the fresh seawater. I’ve known since a 2005 visit to the Oregon Coast, watching the sun set at Cannon Beach, that it was my dream to live somewhere with a view of the water. Tuesday night’s sunset in Edmonds reminded me of how much I want that for myself someday.

After awhile I got cold, and reluctantly left my bench to make my way to Starbucks for some hot chocolate to warm up with. But I looked back at the pictures that I snapped of the sunset over the next few days whenever I started to feel stressed, and remembered the beauty of this place I get to live in.