Pink Skies & Lunar Glimpses | Sunset over Bucharest

Too often, I walk with my headphones in my ears. I like to be productive. I like to know I'm getting something done while out and about, so it's often podcasts or such. Sometimes, it's music, and it just makes me feel like I'm on Cloud 9. Lately though, I've been taking exercises in stillness. While I like both the podcasts I follow and the music I listen to (evidently, I wouldn't be listening otherwise), I find they are often causing a disruption. Podcasts, for obvious reasons, tend to engage the mind, and make it impossible to be calm, still. I love Russell Brand's podcast, Stay Free, for instance, but he has a very gregarious way of talking that riles me.

Music is better, but not ideal, either, as it keeps me plugged inside a fantasy world. Last night, I really needed to connect with the world I was walking in. I could tolerate no sounds that would make me anxious, or unduly excited. So I just walked, listening to the easy silence of dusk as it came.

It's a tremendous luck for a city (even more so a capital) to have water running through it. One needs only observe the Thames or the Seine to see that. Sadly, Bucharest always falls short when it comes to glorifying and highlighting its water, Dambovita.

You wouldn't think it from the pictures, though. And as it happens, the winding water (the area that runs about 20 minutes from my house, at least) is one of the nicest places to see the sunset in Bucharest. So feeling a little like I needed to ground myself into something beautiful and real, I headed there.

I feel very safe when I can see the Moon clearly above me, for some reason. It's like a very discreet 'hi'. Obviously, this was of the pre-dusk batch, too :)

I don't know how it is where you are, but there is great comfort for me, in places I've been before. It's ironic, as I bore easily. I want to see more, I want to see different places, and I often end up bemoaning these places -- am I gonna walk these streets till the end of time?

But then, there's evenings like these, where you can walk along and feel safe, and have the street quiet and familiar around you, and I wouldn't trade it.

I do some of my best reasoning while walking, which I suppose is another reason to aim for silence. I guess it helps having something to distract me physically. Photography is the same way.

Sunsets are funny. For about 30-45 mins, it doesn't matter where you are, whether on some remote, stunning beach, or in the busy, industrial city. That pink-purple sky, if you're lucky to get it and not have the sun die out behind a myriad of clouds, makes it the most wonderful place in the world.

I'm weird. I find more comfort in street art than in actual animals, sometimes.

What calms you? I'm still looking, but colors seem to work well. The Moon, too.