I can’t tell you how I came to be the kind of man that learned how to be a storm walker but I know that I started wrestling with angels around 14 years or so ago.
Some might ask for something more precise than that but truth is I can’t tell you when we locked our arms and legs around each other, just that we did and the battle has gone on ever since.
Don’t ask me to give you an honest answer because iTunes is playing the theme to the Dukes of Hazzard and I am busy thinking about jumping cars over rivers, bridges and all sorts of things.
Hell, I am busy thinking about how fast I used to drive my Camaro and all the stupid things I did in it which reminds me I ought to give thanks for still being around.
Mom, do yourself a favor and don’t ask for any of these stories because you don’t really want to know and I sold that car more than 25 years ago so it is all ancient history.
Besides you know your baby boy likes to do things his way, even if he hasn’t been a baby for years, Hell, your granddaughter told me I need to realize that we aren’t living in the 70s any more.
Crazy kid used to use the 80s and 90s to try and call me old, but she must be feeling her oats and has stepped it up a notch. I did my best to guide her and told her to ask grandma and grandpa about what life was like in the forties.
But I digress.
Take The Long Way Home
I am somewhere between Take The Long Way Home and Telephone Line today.
Can’t sit still because I have way too much to do and can’t focus because there is too much of it. So I guess it requires the same approach as in the answer to how to eat an elephant.
One bite at a time.
Truth is I went to bad way too late and woke up way too early and managed to take care of some things in between then and now.
But it is not enough to make me feel good or comfortable because the To-Do list feels like it would fill every sheet of the 96 roll carton of toilet paper some people sell.
I am talking the 550 sheet per roll and not the the 500 kind.
In other words, if you don’t eat some bad Chicken Vindaloo enough toilet paper to take you into December or January of next year.
Anyway during the middle of this madness I took a call and had a long conversation that made me a good candidate for starring in a remake of the Exorcist.
Eyes bugged out, head spun in a circle and a demonic voice issued from my lips and used words the scathed and scalded.
And because there is love and mercy in the world I wasn’t granted the ability to spit blood, shoot fire from mouth or laser beams from my eye.
Nor was I granted the ability to force choke some people because I would have done so…happily and gladly.
Funny thing is it reminded me how easily I let go of some people and some things because I just don’t want or need the craziness.
But you don’t always get that option.
Almost went with one of the Whitman or Coelho quotes, came close and decided not to. Might use them for another post I am thinking about writing.
Got this piece in my head about why I write that I might put down on paper.
Something about how it is one of those things that you get better at as you age. Might be decent at 48 and then ok at 50, but I can smile because by 85 I am going to be pretty damn good at this.
Practice, practice, practice and smile because unlike physical efforts you aren’t stuck saying your prime was in your twenties or early thirties.
I sometimes wonder how many athletes cope when they go from being the best out there to someone who can’t bring it any more.
As a sports fan I have seen it happen many times.
One day you are unstoppable and then the next you are watching guys who never could have kept up beat you.
It makes me crazy to see some of these kids beat me to the basket because I know there was a time when it wasn’t a question and I am just a so called weekend warrior.
Has to be worse for the pros but writing doesn’t have those restrictions.
Of c0urse it is always possible you pull off something like Orson Welles did with Citizen Kane and spend the rest of your life trying to match or exceed it.
But at least you know you have a shot.
Unless science comes up with something I am probably never going to be able to run like I did at 27. I still have a decent first step and there is a lot I can still do but it is not what it once was.
That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a big change and I am working on making it more manageable.
Anyway, that is part of what might show up in this post about writing, assuming I don’t decide to write some fiction.
That never gets old for me either.
This wrestling thing, I guess it is just in my blood.
