So it begins...

Who am I? The world's biggest cowardly writer.

Too timid to use my name, I'm dipping a toe into the blogdom at the urging of a couple of friends. I promise nothing but a view into life on the verge of fifty, whatever blows out my snorkel when I surface from one of the pools in which I swim, and a forum for you to talk back and point out my blind spots...kindly.

And what's with the title? Not a lot. Blue is on my mind today. Blue states (I don't live in one, but I did once and loved it dearly). Blue skies (I'm thinking of the autumn sky in Taos, bright against the golden cottonwoods). Blue feelings (they come and go, just like everyone else's). And blue eyes (I do have two of them).

I ran across a Frank O'Hara quote today when I clicked on an unfamiliar blog. I'm not particularly familiar with O'Hara and the quote doesn't describe me, per se, but it just hasn't left my mind. Here it is:

My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time;
they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and
disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away.
Or again at something after it has given me up. It makes me
restless and that makes me unhappy, but I cannot keep them
still. If only I had grey, green, black, brown, yellow eyes; I
would stay at home and do something. It's not that I'm
curious. On the contrary, I am bored but it's my duty to be
attentive, I am needed by things as the sky must be above the
earth. And lately, so great has their anxiety become, I can
spare myself little sleep.
- Frank O'Hara

It seems that many of my friends, men and women alike, particularly those with aging marriages or aging parents or children of any age are feeling a disquiet in their gut.

But I'm taking that blue and I'm making mine like the blue of the sky: impermanent. When it's here, it's here. Then it won't be. Then it will be. That much is certain.

I'm going to let it be the cerulean blue of peace.