Life’s tribulations, Oscar Wilde suggested, are best when less spoken about; whereas the color, the beauty and the joy of life should be the focus of our sympathy. But what would a poem be without its lament; or a Mexican soap opera short of melodrama?

 “Cry WaterColors” is my retort to an un-merited complaint. Without denying the value of the expressed sorrow, the phrase enlivens its melodrama and cheerfully entices reevaluation of the context of that complaint.

Every day we are conditioned by monotonous chores and, on occasion, challenged by some distraction. Whether these are cherished or disdained depend on the adjectives by which we color the event unto our memory.

An editor once critiqued my writing for the excessive use of adjectives; but these are the modifiers that add color to the everyday occurrences I write about.  The adjective gives a nuance to each event as it is cast into memory.  But I suppose what the editor meant was that there is no need to “cry over spilled milk”. (to Cry WaterColors)

How often have you read about a millionaire given a multi-million dollar Christmas bonus who complained about the sixty percent tax bracket with which he will be taxed? Hard to empathize when your savings account is the sum total of all the pennies the bank rounded out from your debit charges. Were it not for this behind-the-scene savings, you would have had nothing but the coins gripped from inside your pocket-book. Wouldn’t it be nice to have responded to that millionaire with a few choice adjectives?

 I invite you to write about an occasion where “Cry WaterColors” would have been a befitting retort; an occasion where someone complaining of a hardship would have been better served by reevaluating the context of their complaint.

Every month a free autographed copy of my book “Cry WaterColors” will be given to the person submitting the story bearing most impact.