Song Sung Blue

I’m feeling a little sad today, about odd things—

• thinking of the old song “Song Sung Blue”
• seeing pink blossoms (crabapple, I’d guess?)
• spotting the Bandelier trail map in my car door
• selecting from French cheeses
• a ten-week old black Lab puppy
• hearing the opera of Werther, the Goethe novel I read in graduate school
• seeing pictures of the ribbons of light at Grace Cathedral
• making enchiladas (sloppy California ones, instead of authentic New Mexico ones)
• remembering birthdays I’m late for

In a short-short I’m writing, the heroine gets weepy at a bunch of things, “which snuck up on her unawares.  Passing a dance studio (all those graceful, talented, and self-assured young girls).  Seeing an old white-nosed Golden Retriever lay its head trustingly on its owner’s knee.  A mild reproach from an older colleague at work.  An unexpected hole in one heel of her favorite pair of knee socks, given her two Christmases ago by her mother.  A valiant little vapor trail petering out to nothing in the evening sky.  Even a tin of bay leaves at Safeway—exactly like the one she’d bought to make jambalaya with sausages and red peppers and chicken thighs for Joey’s 40^th birthday.”

My mother would relish her “Mad” Days, when she thoroughly enjoyed being mad at the world; and I find being sad is often a real treat.  Mindfulness would tell me that sadness is neither right nor wrong, just my teacher for today.

image:  Anne Patterson, Graced by Light