Dove-grey sunset

I sat on my front porch and watched the sunset this evening. Nothing explosive or overtly magnificent - just soft and quiet. The sky began its getting-ready-for-bed as a pretty, soft blue with high streaks of glowing white clouds and slowly muted to cotton-candy blues and pinks and then continued to fade to a gentle dove grey around the edges with a darker blue-grey at the highest part of the sky. All the birds and other animals started their busy scuttering about getting their houses in order for the night. Squirrels tossed acorns down from the treetops, birds flitted from branch to branch trying to find the most comfortable spot, and crickets and tree frogs tuned up their instruments getting ready for their soft night-music. 

I sat there… on my top step… wanting to be quiet, just listening and watching, and I slowly felt that quiet sit down next to me and get comfortable. And I sat there - not wanting to miss a single color fade or a single birdsong. And after the light started to wane and the bats started to wing out and the first star started to delicately twinkle from above me, I took a slow, deep breathe and let the worry and troubles of the day fall off me. And the quiet replaced the left-over empty spaces with peace.

And I stood up and walked back inside the house - back to the bright lightbulbs and the noise of the tv, and the dirty dishes. And I carried that quiet and that peace right into the bright house and breathed in the calm that followed.