Saturday, October 1, 2011

How to Vanquish the Blues

The south entrance to our yard

In the night or first thing in the morning, before I'm fully awake, I sometimes feel a lonely hopeless emptiness, as if there’s no lasting meaning or value in life, as if all our efforts and struggles come to naught anyway— we die, our loved ones die, we aren't that important to anyone— but the other night Scott had been out of bed and when he came back I asked if he was all right and he said he was having trouble breathing, was stuffed up, and I put a comforting hand on him and he laid one on me— and that lonely emptiness disappeared.

Is that all it takes? A gentle concern for someone else, and their wordless appreciation of it, to vanquish the blues?

For a laugh and a lift, go read Brainie's poem today at Stubblejumpers Cafe. Click here.