Sunshine on my Shoulders

Did you read the title and immediately think of John Denver’s classic song?

“Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy

Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry

Sunshine on the water looks so lovely

Sunshine almost always makes me high”

It’s a song we love because it shares a sentiment we all feel… sunshine is GREAT!

My neighbour was telling me about her terrible day… she accidentally flooded the entire house. (There was no need to put the word ‘accidentally’ in there because NO ONE in their right mind deliberately floods their house but she kept telling me how she didn’t mean to do it.) She went on to say that the only thing that kept her going that day was the sunshine. We’ve had so much grey and rain lately, then on the first sunny day she has this catastrophe. How thankful she was for the sunshine on her shoulders!

I get that! I, too, added ‘grateful for the sun’ to my list this week, and then noticed an Arabic proverb at the top of the page that said ‘All sunshine makes a desert’. What?!

I guess its actually true. Even the things we love the most, like sunshine, can become a negative if there’s too much of it. Maybe not necessarily a negative but it does change the whole landscape, doesn’t it… makes a new norm. We need all things in balance. Living here in NZ, we have a pretty good 50/50 mix of wet/grey days and then sunshine days. However, when we lived in the tropics we had a dry season which was gorgeous, clear blue sunny skies day after day, but then came the rainy season and that gorgeous sun was no where to be seen for, what seemed like, forever. The desert would be even more extreme.

I painted a still life of an apple this week and couldn’t work out why it looked so flat. Eventually it dawned on me that I had put in the deep shadows but had forgotten the highlights. Until I had equal balance it was all wrong. Even a painting needs both. I put the highlights in and voila! The painting popped!

So basically, too much of even a great thing that we are so thankful for, can be a bad thing. Balance is key. Don’t begrudge the grey days. Celebrate them too. But when the sunshine is on your shoulders, when it’s in your eyes and making them water, when the light is sparkling across the water, fly high. Enjoy the moment 🙂 It’s the grey day that makes the sunshine day pop!