A paler shade of blue

Blue, blue, my world is blue
Blue is my world now I'm without you
Gray, gray, my life is gray
Cold is my heart since you went away

Red, red, my eyes are red
Crying for you alone in my bed
Green, green, my jealous heart
I doubted you and now we're apart

When we met how the bright sun shone
Then love died, now the rainbow is gone

Black, black, the nights I've known
Longing for you so lost and alone

No, I'm not suicidal and I'm not feeling lonely or alone.

When I looked out the window this morning at that hour when the sun and earth are flirting with each other and the moon stares down nearly round-eyed, everything was blue. All the snow is part of the reason. At that hour and those moments with the sun and earth doing their daily winter dance, the light is blue and everything is blue. Even the sky in light, weak as an old man's labored breath, is powdery and blue and snow on rooftops, fence posts and ground brilliant and ethereal, ghostly and pale against the halftone colors of the rest of the world. It's a blue world and only here in this room where the white hot light of a coiled bulb emits no heat are the colors brighter and more real, solid and tangible. But it is that outside world in the snowy hush that draws me and wakes the lyrics of old songs from my younger self echo in my mind.

"Blue, blue, my love is blue," were the words that ached with love and loss and meaning. I don't feel that way now. I have put first loves and crushes behind me for a brighter day, a blue-white day that fills me with waking dreams and possibilities.

Last night, as I waited for the host of the radio show to sign on for our interview, I spoke with the station manager, Lillian Caldwell (great name, btw), and she offered me my own radio show. And I'm thinking about it. I need to figure out a theme and a format, but the show would kill two birds with one stone. I'd have an author site and a marketing platform that could make a difference in my professional life, but also the lives of other midlist or not yet midlist writers that would boost sales and maybe raise the consciousness of reading people everywhere (the show streams all over the world) about writers from all genres and walks of life. Imagine listening to a writer from Sri Lanka or the Ukraine read their work live.

There's still a lot to ponder, research and do, but I'm leaning in that direction.

Now all I need to do is figure out a format, a title for the show and start lining up guests.

I'm feeling a paler shade of blue.