Category: vacation, sunshine, tropics, portland oregon,

I spent a significant amount of time in the airport today, watching people with their comings and goings. I sat, listened, observed and at times interacted. It is amazing how you can feel the aura of energy around individuals who are going – about to take off for the “get the hell out of here” vacation and those that are leaving for some obligatory reason. Oddly enough, not many of the arriving in Portland passengers had smiles. Not sure if that is because they just got off a flight, its cold here, or we’re just not very exciting…

There are entire dissertations on why vacations are so important and why people tend to anticipate the vacation, sometimes more than the actual vacation itself. But I’m not writing about that. What I want to write about is people, emotions, movement and thought.

As we live throughout our days, we experience good, happy, happiest, great and the best possible days, along with mediocre, sad, frustrating and the worst possible days ever. Deciphering how to turn the bad into good can be a daunting task when we allow ourselves to wallow in self-pity. On the great days, we seem to forget that the bad days are around the corner lurking in the shadows just waiting to rain on our parade and so we also, forget to remember to accept them when they arrive.

I spoke to one woman who was outside dressed in lightweight floral print bell bottom pants and a pair of flip flops with colorful newly painted toe-nails. I assumed she must be headed off to the tropics, but when we spoke, she simply said she was flying to California for a family visit and while California isn’t seeing their biggest heat wave right now, she was still inspired to wear this attire on a 35’ day in Portland Oregon, snow flurries and all!

As I marvled at the coral color pedicure, I realized twofold; there is a warmer better place even if it may be an obligatory visit, and, the cooler weather does not have to dictate our emotion by what we wear and when we wear it. If we were to slip on a sundress and believe we are in the tropics despite the snow, cold, wind, rain or lack of sunshine outdoors, will it actually lighten our mood, make us feel like we are in the tropics? Let’s say it works and it’s good for one day, how might we feel if we did it for 7 days? The hell with the heating bill, right?!

Who cares if the sun isn’t actually shinning indoors or outdoors. If it shines in our minds, we shine.