It's not that it's a beautiful view or anything. It's all the light it lets in. (And, when I want it, air.)

For days, I’d been in a foul mood.

Chalk it up to the feckless debt non-deal, the nonsense that led up to it, the madness in the stock markets that ensued, the credit downgrade, getting rid of HD TV and the phone line we’d had for 24 years,  etc.

I told my wife Monday night that it’s bad. How bad? So bad that I am actually letting economic news get me down, or at least ticked off. Which didn’t happen even when I was laid off. It’s just the long continuation of this sequence of events that just suck more and more as time goes on, with no one seeming to be inclined to do what they should to make it better. That included everyone I castigated in this post, and anyone else you can think of.

See the picture at right. Here’s how I happened to take it: I was waiting at a long light (Huger and Taylor) and wondering just how hot it actually was, and pulling out my iPhone to glance at it — a two-click process. But at the first click, I saw it was in camera mode, and for some reason in reverse-camera mode, so I just clicked the shutter and then stuck it back in its holster. Later I looked back at my pictures for the day, and this just seemed to capture well my mood. I look sort of like “Heisenberg,” halfway through the process of breaking bad. (Of course, my wife might say I always look like this.) I was not putting on for the camera. If I had been posing, I might have taken off my dorky clip-on shades.

So, you have the background.

But then, Tuesday morning, I came into the office, and there was all this… light. Light that I’d never seen before, and it made all things new in the offices of ADCO. I’d never seen any of these things this way before. The light was revelatory, serendipitous, and apocalyptic (in the original, positive sense). It was an epiphany. I’d give you more quasi-religious big words if I had time right now to think of some.

There was a crew washing the windows, inside and out, and they’d taken down all the blinds and screens and storm windows, and ADCO is in this old house with these really tall, crystal-clear windows… and behold, the light made all things new. It revealed new possibilities: See, things don’t have to be the dark way that you think they are. They can become brilliant, quite suddenly.

I’ve written before how much I appreciate my office window, since I had never, ever worked before in a building where it was possible to open the windows before. Well, this just deepened my appreciation considerably.

I’ve been in a much better mood ever since. Not an awesome mood. Not giddy or anything. Just not as ticked off.

Weird, huh? I don’t even like to think that I am such a malleable creature that such simple shifts in physical surroundings can affect me on such a level, shifting my life attitude from negative to positive, even if only briefly. I’m not an animal. I’m a thinking creature. (Also, I’m not one of these sun people. I felt very much at home in the winter drizzle of England.)

But there it is. I feel better now. Not great, just not so ticked off. How are you?

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