Grief is two-toned but happiness has many shades

The colours of joy are many. Just as there as many words to describe the feeling. My friend Dee even has an expression called mellow-joy. And she  uses it from time to time. I suspect it is mainly because people always stop mid-sentence to ask her “Mellow joy? What’s that?” She loves that, because it’s quite apparent from the way she uses it that it never has one singular meaning. Really annoying!

But if you fall off the cliff of happiness into grief then it is always two tones. Gray and bluish gray. Nothing more. And when the haze of grief lifts, the world is bathed in pastels. Bright colours can occasionally be spotted in the distant horizon, but it is too much of an effort to get there. Strangely however, in my dreams grief has an overtone of yellow which makes it bearable. My pop psychologist friend Dee of ‘mellow joy’ fame, thinks that it is my way of dealing with the problem without coming apart at the seams.

I recall something that my mother used to say when I was little, which would help me cope better. She would say that we all have an extra muscle in our hearts which gets stronger and goes dhakaa dhak…dhakaa dhak every time we feel sad or frightened or want to cry. That muscle is what helps a person in times of trouble and if I keep absolutely still and quiet I can hear its occasional flutter.

To this day I find that every time I’m punched in the gut with grief and sorrow I search within me for the beat of the extra muscle and take strength from its rhythmic dhakaa…dhak. Maybe that’s why for me the two-tones have pastels in them as well.