A colleague teases me, “hey Joshua, how many walls have you knocked down. I hear Jericho is still standing.”
I smile and tell him I might not have been built for grace, but demolition is something I excel at.
“There are a few walls that are just memories now.”
“I’ll have to remember to call you the next time I need to tear one down or remove a stump.”
“You can’t afford my hourly rate.”
Embrace Your Inner Darkness
I have spent much of the past two weeks playing fireman which probably explains why I felt like my head was spinning this morning.
The To-do list and obligations momentarily felt overwhelming and I thought of finding a cave like the one above to hide in.
I took a deep breath, centered myself and read some emails and decided I couldn’t make head or tails out of any of it and threw my hands in the air.
“Wilner, shift gears and find something simple that you can do and you’ll feel like you have crossed something off of the list.”
The words hung in the air unanswered and I heard Lewis Black say, “it is dark in here and we may die.”
They weren’t intended to be inspiring but they rattled something loose and I decided to embrace my inner darkness.
*****
Someone read a passage from Kipling’s Law of The Wolves and bells went off inside my head.
Can’t say how or why or precisely what happened other than there was a click and I thought to myself, “I know things” and smiled broadly.
NOW this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky,
And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die…Cave right is the right of the father, to hunt by himself for his own;
He is freed from all calls to the pack. He is judged by the council alone
I Don’t Have To Prove A Thing
“When you live in Texas you have to wear a hat and listen to country music.”
I nod my head and tell him I already have a hat and I like some country music.
“Prove it, name some songs.”
I tell him I don’t have to prove anything but pull out my cell and show him a bunch of songs.
He sees Austin by Blake Shelton, Somewhere With You by Kenny Chesney and Live Like You’re Dying by Tim McGraw.
I get a little grief but when he finds some Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard he tells me I might be ok.
“It is probably good that I don’t need your approval.”
There is a little more edge to it than I intended but I am not interested in being tested and am not entirely sure why I even responded.
As I walk back towards the car I hear a voice inside my head say something about having done a stellar job of embracing my inner darkness.
A Note On The Car
The note is an apology from a man who says he hit the driver’s side.
It includes a cellphone number and a message that says he’ll help take care of it.
Grumbling to myself I walk around the car to see what he was referring to and am not sure where the damage is.
I wander back the other way and think I see a small spot, but I am not certain.
Part of me feels some relief because I don’t want to deal with the hassle. I still haven’t gotten back into the email account that was hacked and am not sure if I’ll be able to.
Might have to abandon it or might have to fight a little longer and harder to get AT&T to help me fix it.
It is a secondary account and I am not sure if I absolutely have to have the information contained within, but I am annoyed.
But whether I am more annoyed by the lack of service I receive on a free account or just irked because of things in general is debatable.
It would be nice to have some help taking care of some of this stuff, especially with the big decisions that are coming down the road.
My kids have heard me tell them more than once that sometimes in life you have to fake it.
You don’t always know exactly how or what to do so you just have to fake it.
Smile and work the problem and do your best to just roll with it.
That is a pretty good description of what I am doing. I never did figure out how solve that Rubik’s Cube.
Got three sides done multiple times, but never more than that.
I expect I could do better now.
Age and experience go a long way or so I like to think and when they don’t, well I just embrace my inner darkness.
Got no idea how to proceed in some areas but I’ll keep going because what other choice is there.
One day there is going to be one hell of a story to share.
