I know a woman who calls herself a bright-sider.  Okay, technically, I don’t know her.  We’re “friends on Facebook”, but she’s the sister-in-law of a person whom I do know and who is my friend.  That connection suffices for the category of “acquaintance” these days, and I’m claiming it.

This woman —  let’s call her “Karen” — tries to see the positive aspect of daily life.  “Karen” (okay, her name really is Karen) posts encouraging quotes and comments, and calls on others to do so.  I want to meet her, and we arranged to do so once, but one or the other of us got sick.  But Karen seems to live a true bright-sider life, from what I can see, and so I have drawn her into my attempts to do likewise.

When life overwhelms me, I call upon Karen in the virtual world or in my heart.  “I need a BRIGHT-SIDER!” I’ll shout, in a comment posted on Facebook.  I tag her.  She invariably responds.  If I can’t reach someone in the “real world” — by phone, in person, by text, by any of the thousand ways we reach each  other these days — somehow seeing Karen’s often instantaneous response to my call for encouragement cheers me.  When I’m in a hopeful mood, I do the same thing:  “BRIGHT-SIDERS UNITE!”  I’ll post, along with mention of what has prompted me to smile in that moment.  I tag Karen, and in a few minutes, I’ll see her validation of my positive attitude.

I’m not sure I would go so far as to say that I’ve always been a “bright-sider”.  But I’m stubborn.  As with many stubborn folks, I often let go of situations long after others would find it prudent to do so.  This tendency applies to everything:  Clothing, cats, relationships, jobs, ideas.  I’ll try anything to succeed — or at least, anything that occurs to me, that I’m not afraid of trying, or the fear of which I can conquer.

I once tried a case in front of a bankruptcy judge who opened the hearing by saying, “Ms. Corley, I don’t like your client, I don’t like your boss, I don’t like your law firm, and I don’t know you, but I daresay, I won’t like you either.”  I promptly moved to disqualify her, which motion she denied.  I asked for a stay to go seek a writ to prevent her from presiding over the case, and she denied that too.  I pointed out that her comment showed bias, and she said, “What comment?”  She turned to her court reporter and said, “Did you hear a comment?”  He shook his head.   The only other people in the room were myself, my client, and my opposing counsel and his client.  I had no recourse but to proceed.

At one point in the hearing, I asked a witness about medication he took which could impair his memory.  The other side objected and the Court sustained the objection.  I asked to be heard and stated my case.  She let me ask what medication he took and when he answered, she said, “I’ve taken that medication and it didn’t impair my memory.”  She ordered the testimony stricken.  I stood in front of the bench and felt the fury rise.  I said to her, as calmly as I could, that the witness was slightly built, where as she was rather hefty, and perhaps the medication didn’t impact her ability to recall because her body absorbed it more easily.  She glared at me, silent but clearly angry.  Then I asked leave to question the witness further and to leave the testimony in the record.  No sound filled the courtroom for a full two minutes.  (Stay silent for two minutes; it’s a long time.)

Finally, she leaned back in her chair and said, “Okay, that could happen.  You may proceed.”

I think even my opposing counsel released a long-held breath.

So believe me when I tell you, I’m not afraid to beat a horse just in case it isn’t really dead.  And I’m not afraid to confront a dark cloud and command it to show its silver lining.

Yesterday, I had lunch with a friend and had an asthma attack in the restaurant.  That asthma attack lasted most of the day. I struggled to move through each moment. I used my inhaler as often as I dared.  I slowed my heart rate, meditated, did some yoga stretches. I could not overcome the sensation of drowning.

Before I went to sleep, I posted a comment on Facebook about trying to see the bright side of having an all-day asthma attack.  I didn’t hear from Karen, but my friend Stacey in St. Louis said, “At least you’re still breathing!”  Well, good point, Stacey.

At least I’m still breathing.  And still — this morning, with the pounding in my chest finally abated — looking for the bright side.

Last evening after visiting my favorite curmudgeon, I struggled into the front seat of my car.  For some reason, its adjustment had been moved and I no longer found it easy to glide behind the steering wheel which  pressed against my chest.  I got the key turned and my window open and drew in gigantic gulps of air as I fought off my claustrophobia.

A half-mile from the place where Jay lives, my phone rang.  I steered the car to the curb and answered, hearing my friend Penny’s voice.  I love the cadence of her speech, the familiar twang of home flavored with the rounding of nearly half a lifetime on the western edge of Missouri.  She offered to make coffee, early enough for me to be home before the witching hour, and I made a wide U-turn heading back into Kansas and northward, to Roeland Park.

She handed me a heavy ceramic mug, no doubt thrown by a potter she knows.  I slid into the chair she always warns me will fall backward, a Southwestern style wood chair which probably weighs more than I do.  She sits to my right, and we begin to navigate the vagaries of our respective weeks, but mostly of mine.  I find it hard not to complain, not to cry, not to ask over and over again why.

A couple of hours later I’m home and I’m talking to Jessica.  She’s got real heartache:  the death of her father, tarnish splashed on her images of life, the unexpected turn in her road.  I fall silent about my own troubles until she leaves.  Then I try to write and I’m looking at a blank computer screen when Penny calls to tell me she loves me.  Then I dissolve. Life overwhelms me.  And Penny, being Penny, listens, and soothes, and tells me, over, and over, and over, that she loves me.

No matter how difficult my life becomes, there’s always another cup of coffee to be had, always another friend — or the same one — to sit across from the table and hand over the Kleenex, waiting for the flood gates to open and disgorge the wall of water which they have restrained.  And when the waters settle, and the Kleenex lie crumpled around me, that friend pours another cup of coffee, and we  let the silence surround us.  In the silence, at times, we can heal.

The mug that Pat Reynolds gave me, sitting on a tile trivet from my mother.