July 20: Sunny Monday

It's nice to start a new week with sunshine. That's one of the things Fort Lauderdale can do for you. Summer or winter, spring or fall, you usually can look outside first thing in the morning ... and smile. Smile at the bright wash of light when you open the blinds. Smile at the warmth when you reach outside for the morning newspaper. Smile at a world that somehow seems to be smiling back at you. This is what it was like for me on Monday morning as my work week began. In some ways, I'd been dreading the return to the daily grind after a pleasant weekend - coping again with the deadlines and phone calls, the tweets and status updates and all the routine tasks. I don't usually feel that way on Mondays but this week was an exception. I just wasn't particularly enthused about getting back into it.

But South Florida helped me get back into it anyway. When I stepped outdoors around 8:30 Monday morning, the air felt pleasantly warm and the sunshine reflected off the sidewalk and the driveway, the bushes and grass and trees. Everything radiated light.

This was just a brief trip out to the parking lot for something. I work at home and had to get back inside my condo to send some early emails and update web pages. But before really settling into my desk for the day, I sat on the patio with the ceiling fan on medium and stirring up enough breeze to keep me comfortable as I watched the morning sun play off the foliage and water in my backyard. The palm fronds and oval leaves of the Hong Kong Orchid tree were colored by the brightness, their strong greens muted by a smear of white light that was spread over their surface. The leaves flickered just slightly in the morning air, gradually changing to deeper greens as the sun rose. The small lake was quiet, unbroken by fish or turtles or birds this morning. Only that intense sunshine coming off the flat surface in a glare. I stayed there for a while, enjoying it all, still smiling to myself a little, I think. And then at some point, I simply folded up the newspaper, picked up my coffee cup and went inside to my office. Yes, all the sunshine had helped me deal with a minor case of Monday blahs. I felt ready now to face my week.