The BlueHappiness Jacket - theHumm August 2020

By Glenda Jones

Back in March when my winter jacket was grey and grotty, I gave in to spring fever and luxuriated in the rainbow that is Judy Joannou’s shop on Mill Street in Almonte. Racks of alluring summer wear in greens, pinks, and swirls of oceanic and floral designs, sang of a season in the sun. I pictured drinks on the patio, swanning through flower gardens, summer hats, and anything but slushy sidewalks and grey skies. Every piece conjured the coming months of summer.

It was a true “dreaming in technicolour moment” when I found the perfect jacket. (Okay, we’ve been down this road before, and you know that finding this perfect jacket is something I’ve done many times. Judy knows when she sees me coming that a sale is likely!) It was every shade of blue and yellow, just the style I love, but alas, a size that didn’t fit. I felt a pang of regret as I walked away without it, blithely declaring it wasn’t meant to be. I thought about that jacket several times through the spring, thinking that even though there was nowhere to go, I loved it, maybe even needed it.

Imagine my delight when a few weeks ago, Judy called to say she had my jacket. It couldn’t have come at a better time. Sure, the weather is too warm for my beautiful jacket now, but that’ll change. Sure, I have nowhere to wear it, but that’ll change too. In fact, I may make an occasion simply as an excuse to don it.

In the meantime, Blue Happiness is hanging at the front of the closet where I see it every morning, and I choose to make the day a Blue Happiness Day. That one piece of clothing makes me smile, and that’s a good start. If I go out to the garden and find the deer have once again denuded my hostas, I don’t rail and whine, but instead remember the beauty of the doe standing stock-still beside the pond this morning. When the dogs dig holes half way to China right where I walk, I don’t take them to task, but instead think of the fun they had seeing how far into the dirt they could shove their noses.

The garden has succumbed to draught, curled up its leaves and declined my attempts to lure flowers out of the mayhem. What Diva hasn’t destroyed in her quest to catch snakes, the weeds have overtaken, so now I’m looking to the hollyhocks (gorgeous draught-resistant babies!) and the trumpet vine to satisfy my flower fix.

The Blue Happiness jacket gives me incentive to make plans. We don’t need to sit here doing same old, same old when Jabulani Winery is offering a taste of Tuscany right at our doorstep jabulani.ca , Smiths Falls has picnics in the park smithsfalls.ca/experience , and various locks along the Rideau offer entertainment galore watching “the other half” drift through the canal in boats worth more than our house. We mentally pack up Blue Happiness and take a day trip.

You can all be happy that I found this jacket, because otherwise I’d have been sporting a pair of tights in a gaudy peacock print fit only for exercise class. They fit the bill for something exotic, but mostly for the laugh factor. Sometimes an item leaps off the rack for no other reason than to get a giggle.

However, my Blue Happiness jacket is definitely a keeper for many reasons. It came along when I needed a lift, and it has delivered in spades.

Colleen Gray — Indigenous Artist, Strong Woman, Good Human - theHumm August 2020

By Sally Hansen

In June of 2019, Colleen Gray received the Governor General’s Sovereign Medal for Volunteers “for her role in supporting art exploration through access to art supplies and creative art programs in Canadian remote Indigenous schools through the Art for Aid Project”. Gray is the founder and indefatigable driving force of the project that: “…works to support Canadian First Nations, Inuit and Métis art education programs through......

The BlueHappiness Jacket - theHumm August 2020