Slipping and sliding

My little black cloud has returned.  The one my mother used to say followed me everywhere as a constant reminder of all the doom and gloom in the world.  I felt it coming on as a bad fever dream over the past couple of weeks when I started eschewing morning yoga in favor of reading Google “Top News” headlines.  Next came my compulsive news-watching — and now I’m in full-blown “chicken-little” mode what with four disabled nuclear reactors in Japan spewing radiation and reactors five and six on the way.

I guess it was the earthquake-tsunami combo that really put me over the edge and saw me blow-off a perfectly good weekend of work in favor of the intricacies of nuclear power plants.  Did you know, for instance that after the diesel engines failed, the workers jerry-rigged fire hoses to pour water into the reactors?

Having been to Japan both as a traveler and for work, there has been an immediacy to the events that hit home — not to mention that I not only grew up in the era of “duck and cover,” but having had parents who were active in the Ban-the-Bomb pacifist movement of the late 50’s & 60’s knew rather more than I needed to know about nuclear bombs.

So meanwhile, I have work piling up for grad school, a body that is no longer a supple as a pretzel, and am struggling to find my way into the sunshine again when really — well, you get the point, I’m under my little black cloud!

Talk about a slip and slide.

Well, its time to take my own medicine and get out of my own way so to speak.

Yep.  It’s first-you-cry, wash-my-face time.   I could quote from Casablanca to myself … you know the one, “I’m not good at being noble, but it’s clear to me that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

And yeah, I’d be right.  Part of the all the stuff that happens in “this crazy world” is our own obligation to make it a better place.  So while I can’t do much to help in Japan other than sending on a few bucks, (nope, I didn’t major in nuclear engineering), what I can do is get out of my funk to live a better day and save the black cloud for where it belongs, in the sky to provide rain for all of those pretty May flowers.

So in the spirit of sunshine, born-again Pollyanna says, “have a great day!”