It's a Great Silver Day

     For some days now I'd had an idea for my next blog post, but I was forced to put it on hold. This was mainly because I'd been unable to take a well-lit picture of my intended subject, an oak tree grown from an acorn I'd planted about 5 years ago. My problem? In part, a run of cloudy days.

     I accept gray weather as the price for the onset of autumn, but I still wrestle with the grogginess it induces, one that can slow, as it's doing now, the massive burst of creativity I annually leap into.

     This is not to say, as one might expect, that I am depressed by this sort of weather. Sure, I would at one time have called it dreary or depressing as readily as anyone, but I chose to change my approach some years ago, using a serendipitous, if a bit silly, source of inspiration (though I am proudly eccentric when it comes to these).

     In this case, I chose to take my cue from, of all things, an old series of TV ads for vitamins. The tag line was, “It's a great time to be Silver!”. Though it always seemed too clumsily obvious, in the way so many slogans are, I still liked the positive 'spin' of it – reframing the whole concept of aging, playing out scenes that shot holes in some of the myths associated with it.

     I could see the myth about gray days through the same lens. Instead of continuing to embrace the negative connotations of the phrase, the perceived gloominess and dullness associated with it, I'd begin to think in terms of silver days instead. Days of quiet and rest and recovery. A nice metaphor even came to my mind the other day: overcast weather is nature's way of giving a vacation to hard working plants.

     I would love to write more on the subject, but I'm afraid I can't. You see, it's a silver day and so I'm just too sleepy!