The Colour Pink

"I think it annoys God if you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice."
- Alice Walker -

It has been a long day. I spent my whole day from morning to evening in a Human Rights Tribunal hearing trying to reach a settlement with a complainant on behalf of one of my boards. The complaint is nonsense and I have no doubt we would win at arbitration but the very act of arbitration will cost us a fortune in legals and will suck up a lot more of our time and effort so I went to consensual mediation today with the sincere hope that we could find a way to reach a settlement. Nine hours later after finally reaching an agreement and in the course of signing the paperwork, the complainant changed his mind. I wanted to cry.

Worse for me was that I was supposed to be at the Direct Energy Centre for a six o'clock crew meeting for the much anticipated Weekend to End Breast Cancer. The walk is this weekend and I'm taking a break from walking this year to crew. At six o'clock I was still sitting in a conference room on Bay Street watching our deal fall apart.

When I finally got out, I was feeling extremely frustrated and exhausted. My head was pounding. I couldn't turn left anywhere so I drove a kilometer out of my way. I started wondering if things could be much worse. I drove to the CNE grounds to at least catch the second half of the meeting which was supposed to run until eight o'clock. On the last leg of my journey, I saw there was a rainbow in the sky - a bit unusual as I didn't notice there had been any rain. I began to feel better. I paid to park my car and raced up the stairs. My phone rang. It was Cathy telling me not to bother coming to the meeting - it was over. Aaahhhh! I caught up with some of the crew and my sisters before they left, said a quick hello and walked back to the car. My feet were aching almost as much as my head.

Driving back through the city, I watched the sun melt into the horizon and then it appeared - the most glorious pink sky I've ever seen. Not an ordinary pink sky. Not just a pretty sunset. The sky was the colour of bubblegum. It looked like an artist's rendition. As I drove toward home, the pink sky stayed ahead of me to the north - not to the west - very strange indeed. Within a couple blocks of home, the pink disappeared and darkness descended. I took a deep breath and thanked God for the colour pink.