Does sunshine on your shoulder really make you happy?

It is the middle of November and I am still in short-sleeves and sandal mode.
28 degrees Celsius. Isn't that a little ridiculous for this time of year? Not that I am complaining... well, maybe just a little.

You see, there comes a point when sunshine may be just a tad too much.

"Too much?! My dear, you can never have too much," my Canadian friend tells me, her teeth chattering as she tightens the scarf around her neck and pulls the hood of her jacket down around her ears. "When was the last time you had to commute through snow, sleet and black ice?" she asks.
"Well, you know, I live in a desert."
"Then think about doing this seven months of the year," she adds, stamping on the ground in the attempt to feel her feet again.
"Yes, I understand," I answer, distracted for a moment as I ponder the plastic tie which is holding my sandals together. "But look at it another way. Think about seeing sunshine, only sunshine, day after day after day, seven months in a row."
It was then, in a desperate impulse to do me harm, that she picked up a lethal looking icicle, but luckily it snapped between her fingers.

The problem with Canadians is that they have trouble seeing the whole picture. Or seeing any more than five meters through the blizzard. Of course, Americans are no better. And even on a clear day, they have a problem seeing much further than the end of their nose. Imagine how John Denver would have made it through seven months of straight sunshine. What would he be singing about then?

As for Israelis, if sunshine comes bundled with happiness, why are Israelis such an irritated, loud, paranoid, aggressive and motley lot? Israelis get much more sunshine than Canadians and the whole Northern Hemisphere. You'd expect them to be filled with glee, with all that sunshine on their shoulder. Not only Israelis. Take a look at the whole Middle East. Where is the humour? Where are people sitting back, enjoying a good laugh over a bottle of Arak?

"Your problem is that you have never had much of a sunny disposition."
"Where did you come from?" I ask, looking up into the darkness.
"Just passing by. I didn't want to be rude and enter your thoughts, but..."
"When has that ever stopped you?"
"True, but where would you be without me?"
I decided to let this pass in silence.
"Have you ever considered that this may only be you?"
"Me? What?"
"This aversion to things of a sunny nature."
"It's  not a question of aversion. It is a question of what really inspires me."
"Like me."
"Well, yes. You are my muse, aren't you? Isn't that what muses are supposed to do?
"So, you want me to do the weather now?"
"Could you?"
"I don't do weather."

I am conflicted. I enjoy wearing only shorts, short-sleeves and sandals. And I couldn't comfortably do this if the sun hid itself away. But I would give this up to see the heavens open: the rain pounding down on the roof as the sound of thunder fills the skies. Maybe I should start a facebook group for people searching for the clouds behind the sunshine.

Living in constant sunshine reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day, where our hero wakes up each and every morning to the same day and must relive it again and again. But then, that had a happy ending.

"How long do you think you could weather such gloom?"
"I thought you went for an afternoon nap."
"Couldn't fall asleep. The sun is shining through the window."
"Are you making fun of me?"
"No, that would be too easy.

Discussions with a Muse

“She never married, you know.”
The room was quiet, darker than usual, the only light coming from the glow of the screen. I stopped writing and squinted into the darkness.
“Who?” I asked.
“S...  You remember S. Your first love?”
I remembered. Some things you can’t forget.
“Are we using initials now?”
“You never know who’s listening,” she answered.
“And I thought I was paranoid.”
I could feel her smiling, even though I couldn’t see her.
“How do you know she never got married?”
“I have my ways.” She paused... one of those dramatic little pauses that she was so fond of. “No children, either.”
“And you are telling me this because...” I looked back into the screen, trying to remember what it was I was writing.
“I thought you should know. You never know how far your influence may reach.”
“My influence!” I stared incredulously into the darkness, but it was lost on her. “What do I have to do with her not being married? These things happen.”
“Whatever.”
I found her tone a little suspicious.
“Can I go back to my writing, now?”
“Another book?”
“Yes.”
I heard her sigh. And then silence. I reached for the mouse, hoping she had left.
“M never got married either.”
I slumped back into my chair and pushed the mouse away.
“You are not going to let it be, are you.”
“Should I?”
I sighed. The room was stuffy, despite the darkness. I needed to open a window. I couldn’t remember if there was one.
“No children either.”
“Coincidence,” I countered.
“So you say.”
“Look, I have to get this done,” I said, leaning forward, the chair squeaking.
“Before you lose your inspiration?” She had me there. “Do you remember the day you made A cry? Just before she left to go live... where was it?”
“The other side of the world.” I gave up and lowered the lid of the laptop until it snapped shut. Now the room was totally enveloped in darkness. “No, don’t tell me. She never got married either.”
“You’re getting it now.” Even I, with my well-developed sense of denial, could not but feel that this was the beginning of a pattern. “She was a sweet girl,” she said. “She must have been the sweetest of your girlfriends.”
“How would you know? You weren’t there.”
“I’ve been watching the reruns.”
I shook my head and looked down at the computer, which had given in to her ramblings. Yes, she had been a sweet girl, and yes, it had been criminal of me to even think I could be a proper boyfriend at the time. Or maybe I didn’t think, but simply let things sweep me wherever they would go. No, I couldn’t let her trick me into believing that my influence could stretch that far. I raised the lid and tried to hide behind it, waiting as the computer whirred slowly back to life. It was reassuring to hear something other than our own voices.
“No one is ever going to read this,” I said, as the letters began dancing across the screen.
“Hey, that’s my line.”
“What?”
“In the book. That’s my line in the book.” she protested.
“What does the book have to do with now?”
“The book has everything to do with now. You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the book,” she said.
“I think you have things mixed up.”
“Do I?”
And with that, she was gone, as suddenly as she had appeared.

I wonder if confusion breeds good writing. Was that the reason why it took me so long to write a blog and a book? There had not been enough confusion in my life?

I have been trying to make some sense out of life, ever since I read Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams at the tender age of 14. I practiced on my friends, interpreting their dreams, which added to their confusion, but alleviated mine. I discovered that by remaining cold and analytical, I could somehow overcome the bouts of depression which continually swept over me at this age. I decided to adopt the strict Stoic philosophy of controlling one’s emotions. I didn’t realize, at the time, that in order to eradicate the destructive emotions, the positive ones had to go as well. And then one day... A cried...  yearning for the colours that she sensed were in me - where all she got were the multitude of greys.

How can we know how much we influence others? So much else is involved. A hundred things could have convinced S and M and A not to get married, none of them connected to me. True, A told me that last evening, tears streaming down her cheeks, that she should have chosen my best friend instead. One might say that this error in judgement may have prevented her from trusting her instinct in any future, possibly long term relationship. But we were so young then. So many years have passed by since.

“Why should I feel guilty?” I said out loud, needing to be heard. “It’s not as if I couldn't commit myself. I've been married for over 30 years!”
“And you only had to change country, language, religion and culture first.”
“I thought you had left,” I said.
“I forgot the punch line.”

The room looked the same when she was there, and when she wasn't. I wondered how that could be.“Anyway," it was my turn to protest, "you shouldn’t belittle this accomplishment. Do you know that I was voted the person most unlikely ever to get married or have children in my graduating class.”
“Why would you ever want to have children in your graduating class?”
“I...” I sighed and looked around for my glass of whiskey. If it was there, it was buried somewhere underneath black shades of nothing.
“I suppose you want a medal now for staying married,” she said. “Does your wife know?”
“Know what? That we’re still married?”
“No. That there are a slew of former unmarried girlfriends standing out there, waiting in line.”
“Waiting for what?”
“You figure it out. It’s time for me to go.”

The Man who would be God

The characters worked their way in and out of the darkness. The only thing that seemed to give them life was the solitary light coming from the computer screen. Michael was all alone in the room. The only visitor was his muse. Yet he never knew when, or if, she’d appear again.

He looked again at the words on the screen. When was it that he had become the executioner? His virtual finger hovered over the send button. It would take only one click to become creator. Creating man out of his own likeness. He looked nervously around the room, wondering if he was being watched. How was this any different from the characters in his novel - from the imaginary world he had created for them?

Yet his characters had never tried to enter into his own world. They had attempted, perhaps, to escape the confines of his fiction through creating fiction of their own, having tasted from the tree of knowledge. But they had never sought to replace him.

And here he was, watching helplessly as he gradually lost control over his virtual creation. He had invited Guy to inhabit his world, help him rediscover what he thought he had lost. And instead, Guy revealed a new world that Michael couldn’t have. But it was the same world in which Michael was living. A world in which he and Guy could not both exist. Was Michael to be banished for trying to replace his own creator?

When do fiction and reality no longer exist in separate worlds - and mere mortals have the audacity to believe that they can change the laws of creation?

This is our journey of discovery in - “As I Died Laughing”.

"What are you mad at?"
"Everyone. Everything."
"What's so funny then?"
"The only thing I can do now is laugh."

And so it begins.