Abundant Sunshine

This morning, the light fills our little apartment in Queens in a way that makes me feel hopeful beyond any shred of reason.  Nothing particularly special is scheduled for this day -- unless you are of the belief that the world is coming to an end.  I think that's pretty special... and I don't even know which end of that boxing match I want to be on.  Either, I float up to the sky and feel 'chosen' - a middle-child's dream come true- or I am left to suffer the ruins of our planet and forge a new world with the little that we have -which doesn't seem that different from what we're already doing.


I said to Sheffield, my husband, that despite my desire for children, maybe we better hold off so that they don't have to face such a horrible existence (learning to crawl over the rubble that was once Times Square, teething on bits of Trump Tower, that kind of thing.)  Sheffield said, "Are you kidding?  Our kid could be the leader of the New World!  Our kid could be exactly what that rubble needs.  Maybe the New World will go back to a system of royal monarchy and our kid will be its Queen!  Or King!"

In moments like this, I feel sure that I have married the right person.  A couple needs a sense of balance.  We need to be able to compensate for one another's mood swings and glitches in perspective.  When you're feeling low, I bake you cupcakes.  When I am so tired I cannot walk, you give me a piggy-back ride.  And somewhere in the middle, there is balance and truth.  So, you'll understand when I turn to my handsome husband and say:

"Our kid is not going to be King of the New World, Dear.  

(short pause)

Our kid is going to tell jokes to the King of the New World." 

He says:  "Boy, she better be good."   . . . And I maintain, at least for our family, things would not be that different.

End of the world or not, it is, as of now, a lovely, lovely Saturday.  Our downstairs neighbor, a professional opera singer, is practicing.  He practices a lot and it is never unpleasant to overhear.  It's the opposite.  It's like a celebrity-siting when it happens.  If Sheffield or I hears a snippet, we turn the TV off and stand still:  "did you hear that?!"  And this morning, it is a perfect match to the abundant sunshine outside.  "Abundant Sunshine" is a pair of words I've always loved.  I suppose because it seems like the forecast just "got personal."  Like Forecast, the person, has been slogging away at her job:

"rain"
"rain turning to sleet"
"sleet"
"sleet and periods of snow"
"snow"
"emergency warning in effect"
"click here for school closings"
"mostly cloudy"
"considerable cloudiness"
"clouds with no hope of light"
"clouds with no glimmer of hope"
"areas of thick fog"
"fog"
"heavy fog"
"don't-get-in-your-car fog"
"rain followed by fog"
"rain"
"a mixture of rain and clouds"
"thunderstorms"
"severe thunderstorms"
"flooding in areas"
"emergency flood watch"
"click here for school closings"

and then . . .

One morning, Forecast rolls into her office, pulls up the charts and readings of satellites and radars.  She watches intently the patterns of the clouds, the waves, what's happening to the east, west north and south.  Despite the picket signs she saw on her way to work, "Global Earthquake" seems unlikely in her professional opinion, but she is looking for that kind of thing every day, not just when the picketers in the subway bring it to her attention.  No, no signs of global earthquake . . . however . . . it does seem . . . that those clouds that have been hovering over New York City for weeks now . . . are on a fast-track to Canada! . . . and we are going to see . . .

"Light!"

 . . . she screams, a little too loudly for this hour.  Sports and Traffic are in the room and she doesn't want to give them any false hope.  Traffic is filling his coffee mug as glumly as most mornings.  He's been so miserable lately, and Forecast doesn't want her information to be the reason he jumps off a ledge.  She puts her head back down and pens the phrase that she knows without a doubt will make headlines everywhere.  And yet, she must caution herself, "keep it objective", "this is not about you", "just give the information."  But she knows the phrase "sunny skies" will not do justice to these happenings!  She has the phrase ready, but is it too much?  Too emotional?  Too slanted and swayed?  Fearing that it might win her the label of "Rain Hater" (which is not true at all), she types in what is merely The Truth:

Abundant Sunshine

She resists the urge to add three exclamation marks after the phrase, or the sideways-smiley-face that people so horribly overuse.  (It took her ages to discern what the side-by-side colon-and-second-half-of-a-parentheses were supposed to mean.  How dumb.  As if to illustrate Van Gogh's Starry Night, she could just insert  *** /\ /\ /\ ***  There.  Starry Night.  Don't you see it?)  No, the phrase itself will have to do.  Let the reader interpret it how he/she will.

Today I choose my giraffe mug.  It's bight yellow with Brown spots and there is a miniature giraffe sitting on the floor of the mug.  He looks upward and as I drink my coffee I can see more of him.  Not every day is a giraffe-mug day.  But not every day comes with abundant sunshine either.  I hope we all survive.  -g.h.