A Small Bowlfull

Why are we here? Where are we going? 
... 
We're not here to stay; we're on a short holiday
... 
Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious
... 
The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned
So how can you lose what you've never owned?
... 

(From) Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries
Music by Ray Henderson and lyrics by Lew Brown
Best known recording by Judy Garland

Pretty fundamental, in your face stuff, for a popular song. Written a couple of years after the Wall Street Crash, just as the great depression and the mass migrations of the dust bowl years were taking hold. Even popular music had to reckon with the hard reality, and try to provide some sort of up-beat perspective on dark days

The underlying message urges optimism in the face of difficulties, based on an acceptance that life has, like a bowl of cherries, both sweet and sour components, and that neither are a route to lasting satisfaction. These are Morellos, so not too many sweet moments. Even if we collect all of these and everything else on the young tree, they will only amount to a very small bowl - my dreams of Morello jam will have to be deferred

I have not left the premises all day. There is great satisfaction into settling back into the rhythms of daily life, after so many days of travel and intense experiences. MrsM has now suffered all the photographs - good, bad and ugly - and I have unloaded on to her all my memories of the trip. It's odd that just doing that is quite a cathartic act. There was some tension in trying to hold on to the narrative long enough to tell it as a single story. She is a creative and empathetic listener; don't take it too serious, it's too mysterious