92% blue

Some days everything is 92% blue.

Sometimes, in your own head it just all goes quiet, well my head knows quiet times. The hurly burly moves on, upwardly mobile enough to trouble some other soul with it's smoke, mirrors and dredged up paranoia. It knows the road home well enough so the patch of blue sky can be enjoyed at least temporarily. Some other issue will emerge in due course. The trick is to enjoy, even exploit that blue sky on arrival and squeeze the most err... sky out of it. One way to do this to employ cheerful reflection, positive memories, telling yourself happy stories that may not be wholly factual but are at least happy. You could write these down in the hope of forming up a book or a decent article even, blue sky permitting. I have done this from time to time but tend to use a steam based font for the recording and so they end up as bathroom condensation dripping on the mirror. Typing for real is actually a bit of a chore and can dilute the mood and experience, keep it real and abstract if that's not too complicated. 

Once in a blue moon/sky the thoughts will morph into a breezy wee song, usually with a puerile repeated lyric straight from the playground. This attempts to fly while precariously tethered to some twelve bar blues progression. It's important that the words fall far from the usual blues patterns and idioms and remain oblique and stupidly repetitive.  Added Scottish slang words may help dilute the cultural misappropriation, the more obscure the better. The shelf life for this piece of genius is short but, like some gorgeous butterfly it only really exists to brighten up the day and by definition make the blue sky bluer and brighter. Remnants can be found on abandoned post-its in the bin. Pick them up and look at them a day later and they make no sense, lunatic ramblings and phrases, things that Lennon's beloved auntie would have chucked out straight away. They've been robbed of their  living context so perhaps the bin is best.

A cake, a coffee and a thousand yard stare. A thousand yards isn't even a mile. Looking out the window or across the garden I can see many miles, not just a fraction. What's special about a thousand yards? Maybe if you're looking down the sight of a rifle, that's a proper threat. No the cake, coffee and stare (distant not really relevant) also assists the blue sky therapy. Often partaken in a car, parked up and enjoyed via the glass in the windscreen and not facing directly into the sun. This just causes stress, blinking and isn't relaxing. Watching the world(s) go by from a comfy, stationary cockpit. I like that. Cafes are OK with company, on your own your weird unless you brandish a laptop and have the bearing of an author or an academic. I'm more of a paramedic, first aid for the soul and I can't easily read or write in a pub of coffee shop. I also slurp the coffee too quickly so my time at the table is short and focused on the hot drink.

Walking briskly is good for mental health, jogging or cycling a probably even better. Walking briskly to try to catch a bus that only runs at half hour intervals is not so great for mental health. Bus don't really run to timetables now, customer satisfaction is the thing, not timing. A bus driver told me this the other day, suddenly management have given him an excuse to drive the bus as he chooses. In their wisdom they have separated punctuality from customer "satisfaction", it's a killer move. Of course the railways and airlines have been getting away with this for years, we the public are easy meat and that brisk walk between randomly arriving buses will clear out any bad thoughts or negative experiences. Also if you'd a free bus pass any complaint is feeble, like blank ammunition, you can't score a hit, you didn't pay for it (and don't even mention the taxes you've faithfully paid for the last 45 years).

A colourful stir fry. Meat, fish, prawns, vegetables, oiling, chopping, pouring sauce, sizzling noises, stirring, adjusting the heat, dishing up. Red wine. Red is the new blue. Blue is the new sky, the sky is of course about 92% blue, most days, give or take.

For some there is an alternative way, another kind of space to occupy, one that's not binary, dull or sunny. Due to alternate choices, circumstance and the accidents of genetics they live in the informed and aware world. Here there is a full spectrum, here there is education and sophistication. Ideas and feelings are as fine wines. They have their own language, precise words and expressions that I struggle to translate. I see the speech balloons emerge from their mouths but I falter as I try to read them and their nuances and depths of meaning either sink to the bottom or fly far over my head. Too many letters in their alphabets, too many notes in their music, too many colours in their palette. They hold to firm views and high opinions, I hold to random objects flying by.

...random objects flying by, pierce the cloud that hides the sky.