April 29, 2020: The Gift in the Garbage -

The phrase “silver lining” has gone sour for me.  I resisted it from the beginning, but now I’m protesting. When people say “silver lining,” I react as if they had used a racial slur. I say: I can’t tolerate “silver lining” but I will accept “the gift in the garbage” as an alternative.

This is just quibbling, I know.

There is no real difference between the two phrases, or what they are referring to. But I think “silver lining” has long been detached from its cloud, while “gift in the garbage” requires you to at least SAY the word “garbage,” and that seems to keep it a small distance further away from fatuous and/or heartless happy talk.

Having said that, I am not even talking about the gifts in the garbage very much. Yes, yes, birdsong and very little traffic and lower levels of pollution and home cookin’ on the rise. Sure. All well and good. I just don’t know how to talk about that stuff in quite the right way, without sounding like, “Oh, you haven’t been able to comfort your confused elderly relatives for months? Oh, you are wondering how much longer your business will be able to exist? Well, that’s a shame, but I made a great rhubarb pie last week!”   

I was raised to be (or try to be) a good sport, not to do a lot of whining, but I cannot abide happy talk when things are awful. And once in a while, I run across a kindred soul. There’s a verse in Proverbs that I love: 

Like one who takes away a garment in cold weather,
And like vinegar on soda, (some of the translations use: “like vinegar on a wound”)
Is one who sings songs to a heavy heart.