Blues or blahs getting you?

I’m sitting in an easy chair looking out the window and wondering if it’s good or bad news that the chronically cloudy days are getting longer. If we were enjoying blue skies and sunshine, longer days would be delightful. Longer days full of cloud cover doesn’t do anything to perk me up.

do you have the winter blues or the January blahs?

Photo by J. Harrington

After we survive Friday 13th tomorrow we get to enjoy a brief January thaw over the weekend and the days will improve to “mostly cloudy” before returning to cloudy on Monday. According to an article in the Star Tribune a couple of years ago, “The cloudiest months are November and December, with an average of 18 cloudy days. November averages five days with clear skies and December six.” But, in 2020 “...Minnesota recorded its gloomiest January in 57 years, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. From Jan. 22 to 31, 2020, there were 10 consecutive cloudy days.” I didn’t find an update for 2021 or last year.

Paul Simon, many years ago, wrote a song that nicely captures my mood and status today. I hope you enjoy it. If you want to listen to Simon and Garfunkel sing it, go here. [Music can make even cloudiness better.]

Cloudy

Lyrics:

Cloudy
The sky is grey and white and cloudy
Sometimes I think it’s hanging down on me
And it’s hitchhike a hundred miles
I’m a ragamuffin child
Pointed finger-painted smile
I left my shadow waiting down the road for me a while

Cloudy
My thoughts are scattered and they’re cloudy
They have no borders, no boundaries
They echo and they swell
From Tolstoy to Tinker Bell
Down from Berkeley to Carmel
Got some pictures in my pocket and a lot of time to kill

Hey, sunshine
I haven’t seen you in a longtime
Why don’t you show your face and bend my mind?
These clouds stick to the sky
Like floating question–why?
And they linger there to die
They don’t know where they’re going, and, my friend, neither do I

Cloudy
Cloudy

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.