My lofty goal

 New year, new me - I set myself a goal. The goal is to write and publish one blog a week. It's like exercising, which is a worthy goal but sometimes,  (like all the times...) it's just hard to do. 

A couple of readers have steered my attention to the fact that my content is pretty dark and that people don't always want to read the dark stuff. Maybe I could lighten it up a little. Well, yep, yep - point well taken. I'll get right on that.

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Bernie Taupin once wrote "It's hard to write a song with bitter fingers, So much to prove, so few to tell you why." But he also wrote, "Don't let the sun go down on me." I like that song, it's one of my favorite karaoke songs to sing.  But it's not how I feel. In fact, go ahead and let the sun go down on me. Let it go down and not show itself for a coupla days.  You know why I say that?  Because I love the rain.

One of my earliest memories is when I was in kindergarten, sitting at a little round table with some little friends. From my little chair, I faced the windows and on that day, I could see the dark sky and the pelting rain. But even more mesmerizing, I could hear the mighty roar of the thunder. The teacher brought around some ditto sheets and placed one in front of each of us. I took one look at that insignificant piece of paper and that was it. I couldn't do it. I didn't know why I couldn't do it-I was more than knowledgable in kindergarten skills. I looked up at my friends and I saw that they were all busy doing the work and I started to get scared because I knew that I wasn't gonna do it and that could only mean trouble when the teacher found my naked paper in her pile. I was not in my best situation. But I figured it out pretty quickly. If the teacher never found the paper, then the teacher would never know. And so I relaxed and enjoyed the storm. When I was certain that no one was watching, I crumbled the paper up and stealthily dropped it into the garbage can. I had done well. Nothing to worry about. 

Until that weekend....

It was to my uncanny misfortune that my teacher was a good friend of my grandmother and I just happened to be spending that weekend at my Grandma's house. Somewhere in between the craft making and the Lawrence Welk, my teacher's dear friend asked me, quite unexpectedly, why I threw my work assignment into the trashcan. Holy crap, I was was busted! My heart sank. What would I tell her?  Thank goodness for quick thinking, and though I wasn't really comfortable telling a lie, (to my grandmother, no less!) I did it. I said that I was afraid of the thunder.

"Oh," she said. "Don't ever do that again."  

I can't remember if she said anything more profound than that but I do know that I've never blamed the thunder on any of my future misfortunes. In fact, I give it accolades. It's when I'm most comfortable. And on this rainy day that the principle has labeled a "snow day," I've found some inspiration for something a little less angry, a little more soothing, a little bit of light in the dark.

So thank you to my sunshiny readers for making me a more well rounded writer. I'm gonna keep right on complaining, the way I do it best, but in between my rants and profundities, I'll sprinkle in a few anecdotes, and share some things that make me smile. I hope that on some days, even rainy ones, that you'll smile too.