Reflecting on the blues

Drifting in a sea of despair where the future looks bleak and unreachable a little whisper of hope floats by and beckons your soul. The darkness of the earth has lifted and a light shines upon her apron.

The New Year has slipped into my life without fanfare or fireworks. I just woke up one day and there she was 2011. I made a simple and achievable New Year’s resolution as last year’s came to fruition.

I’m an early riser so I was sitting with the eyes glued to the computer monitor playing my new game – stress management mah-jongg – and it works. Sometimes!!!! Today for some reason it did little to alleviate my stress. The strange part of it was I had gotten the whopping score of 1000. Wowser……

I hear the sound of the trash truck scouring the neighborhood for recyclables – the kind you place in semi clear blue bags and plop at the end of your driveway. I look out the window at the neighbor’s blue bag and my confidence takes a nose dive. Smack right down – face first into the dark place. All my woes, insecurities, issues and drama bubble inside me like a volcano ready to erupt. Why – I think to me and me alone?

A wonderful new year lies in front of me and woe is me is strutting by the banks of the raging river. I have so much to be happy about and so much to be thankful for – what is stirring up this kettle of hot sauce? A garbage bag sitting at the curb? The despair in the world? Taxes and health care? A broken nail?

What happened to my positive attitude? What happened to my 3 happy thoughts of the day? What has caused this dark cascade of gloom to sweep down upon me?

I take a walk outside in the cool freshness of a winter morning in Florida – and absorb the beauty and clean fresh smell of the morning dew. Out of the corner of my eye I see a slight movement in the blueness of the pool. The intake snorts like an enraged rhino ready to attack as the water drifts slowly in circles around the deep end of the pool. The green of the small object contrast sharply with the aqua blue of the very cold water.

Clinging desperately to a tiny piece of leaf floating silently in the pool is a huge spider. Any port in the storm comes to my mind. I see the spider and know he has hope that his day will be better. Without any human intervention what fate could have befallen on this hairy creature? He could have been snatched up by an anole for a breakfast treat, chased by the cat or squashed beneath the sole of a size 9 Merrill.

Today my mind and thoughts are swayed to a happier place. A place where there is hope and a chance to dance with the magic of living. And a big hairy spider has been given another day to enjoy.