The people ask what Submit, Dominate and Shmata have to do with each other and I smile but don’t answer the penetrating question because if you don’t know the answer it is because you don’t need to know.
“Joshua, are you trying to get into trouble?”
Another smile and silence followed by “he isn’t trying and he isn’t avoiding” gets a shoulder shrug and and recognition there are moments where asking questions isn’t advisable because you will not ever get an answer.
Moments later there is a comment from another who is incapable of recognizing where my lines stop and start so I tell her grandson to watch and learn.
“I am going to call you other grandma ‘cuz I think my mom needs to hear from me.”
Later I tell him to recognize the benefit of not responding to all that happens, is said or done.
“I focus on controlling the space around me when and where I can. It took a while to learn it, if you are smart you’ll learn from your father.”
Been a long while since I had last looked at my dad and said “I hear you old man” and longer still since I stared at the phone and asked if that was really the best advice he had to share.
“Dad, I need your ‘A’ game.”
“Sorry that is all I have got.”
“Fuck!”
“Yeah, that is where you are at.”
I think I was about 37 or 38 for that exchange, old enough to recognize he knew far more than I had once thought but young enough for me to look back now and shake my head.
Why?
Because I can see that asking him wasn’t a “Hail Mary” effort the way I thought it was then, it was misplaced hope to get out of a situation that wasn’t going to change without a virtual earthquake.
Woke up today and noticed a couple of flecks of white in my beard and laughed. If the old man were here I might have told him my hair is so advanced it skips turning gray.
I don’t worry about the change in color cuz it is still overwhelmingly described as coal black, in spite of the best efforts of others to cause it to fall out or change.
****
Can’t tell you how good it feels to be home and to know I am not leaving soon for another trip. Got time to catch my breath, buy a new piece of luggage I have been thinking about and take control of things.
Not complete, but certainly feel like I have a better chance of grabbing destiny by the throat or the balls and saying “you’re not dragging me into anything without my having a say in it.”
That was accentuated during my workout tonight because for the first time in a while I didn’t notice anything unusual while I lifted.
I threw the iron around and my body responded as if I were 20 years younger. It wasn’t just pleasant, it was invigorating.
Wrap both of my hands around and thrust with force and intensity.
I had a dream that set me on fire in a good way, a sense that if I had been choking I wasn’t any longer because I was inhaling my air in huge quantities.
Looked at the reflection in the mirror and said hello to that ring of fire.
“Not going to wonder or worry about whether it was just a dream or foreshadowing, just going to roll with this moment.”
The reflection nodded his head back at mine recognizing that sometimes you have to live moment by moment and not try to plan or predict the future.
Later on I explained to someone else that I was going to have to plant my feet and walk barefoot through shards of glass to get through a particular situation.
“How are you going to do it?”
“One step at a time, by force of will. I think this particular situation is something that can be positively impacted by it or at least I hope so. I might be wrong, but I don’t know enough here to say for certain.
Got at least a half dozen different people who play roles, so I think it lends itself to someone taking control.”
They nodded their head and as we walked away I asked myself if I believed it to be true and decided I do.
There is no single ownership here so it is ripe for one person to come in and affect things by pushing hard in a particular direction.
Sometimes you have to dominate a bit to make others submit or so the theory goes.
Time to find out if that is accurate or not.
