Hello Reader,

I recently shared a line that came to me out of the blue. Then I caught myself on the phrase. Out of what blue?

The sky, it turns out. The full version is “a bolt out of the blue,” and it means lightning from a clear sky, the one place you’d never expect it. Newspapers were using the long form by the 1860s, and by 1879 someone had clipped it to the three words we use now. The bolt fell away. The blue stayed.

I like that the sky kept its place in the phrase, because the sky is the part that matters. A bolt from a storm is just weather. A bolt from a clear sky is the thing you remember.

Here’s the other reason I’ve had the phrase in my head. In 1977, Electric Light Orchestra put out a double album called Out of the Blue. Jeff Lynne wrote it in a chalet in the Swiss Alps, and for about two weeks it was dark and foggy and he wrote nothing. Then the fog lifted, he saw the mountains for the first time, and he wrote “Mr. Blue Sky,” with thirteen more songs following over the next two weeks.

Most people tell that story as a story about sunshine. I think it’s a story about fog. He sat in it for two weeks. He didn’t leave. And when the sky cleared, there was something in him ready to come out.

Ad placeholder

That’s the part of “out of the blue” we tend to skip. We treat the unexpected as pure luck, something that happens to you or doesn’t. But a bolt can only come out of the blue if there’s blue for it to come out of. A sky packed with cloud can’t deliver one. Neither can a day packed with everything you said yes to.

I wrote about this in Productiveness without using the phrase. The Grace chapter has a confession in it: I tried to force the book onto imaginary deadlines, and the writing came out brittle. It only softened when I stopped and came back to chapters when they felt ready, rather than when the calendar said I should. Grace, as I mean it, includes time that doesn’t demand every minute be filled. And Trust is what lets you leave that time open without panicking, the confidence that a day with some give in it will hold.

So I’ve stopped thinking of “out of the blue” as a description of luck. It’s a description of conditions. You can’t schedule the bolt. You can keep some sky clear.

I’d rather not pretend I’m good at this. My fog weeks are real, and I don’t always sit in them with much patience.

But here’s the question the phrase left me with: When did something last arrive out of the blue for you, and what was the sky like when it did?

The Final Flicker

Keep a little sky clear this week. Something may need the room.

See you later,
Mike

P.S. Garland Coulson is leading this month’s Grand Productivity Group session, “Unwrap Your Productivity: Holiday Time Management Secrets,” on Tuesday, November 10 at 3 PM ET. It’s about making room for work, gatherings and family traditions so December doesn’t turn into a race. I’ll be in the room too. Guests can join free and you can save your spot here.

Thanks for reading. Your time is valuable, and I don’t take it for granted. In a world pulling us in all directions, thanks for choosing The Lantern.