Mr. Bond and I are hanging out though I am not really awake nor asleep.
I followed through on my promise in the last post to see a doc today and I got some answers that sound like they should lead to greener pastures.
Hasn’t stopped moments of feeling like my head is preparing to spin off and launch itself into space or this music from being back a memory of my father’s final days.
I chose not to lift today though I spent time walking outdoors following my 40 minutes on the elliptical. Something about the day took something out of me.
For a while physically I felt as I had been beaten all over and then I found that place I go to where I remember the boy who yelled “I take this potch and throw it away.”
It energized me, revived me and brought me back but the rush isn’t still flowing and I feel the spinning revving up.
Moments like this are when I most feel like whatever age I am supposed to be but they don’t stop me from believing sleep will restore parts and pieces because I am not done raging against the dying of the light.
Sometimes you get a chance to find a flame that you thought was extinguished and watch it grow bigger and brighter.
Sometimes you think you ought to just let it burn out and then something calls you to from a place you can’t find on a map but arrive it based upon instinct.
Maybe you make like John Keating and issue your barbaric yawp and remind yourself and others that you remain in touch with that which contains your uncivilized barbarian.
*****
Yesterday I pulled 200 some odd pounds on the lat pull. It didn’t happen because I was angry or fearful.
It happened because I watched the guy next to me do about 176 and just wanted to do more than he did. So I got up and added some weight and pulled down what 25 year-old me could do without effort.
Could have gone heavier than I did and been fine. Could have done it with relative ease because I forgot who I am now and remembered who I was.
But more than that I remembered a line from The Phantom Tollbooth.
“So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth
Both of those Wilner men in the picture above are gone and have been for some time now. Both taught me more than a few things that I pass along to my children and to those that catch them from my words.
During the last few years of Grandpa Wilner’s life there were moments when he was hospitalized like other old people.
Sometimes the time in the joint would confuse him a bit and he would call me Orrie instead of Josh.
Every time I wondered or worried if he was losing it he would say something that would make it clear he was really there even if he mixed us up or said something that suggested he thought it was 50 years earlier.
Once when I remarked upon it he turned and looked at me and I saw a little fire in those blue eyes.
“You know when the angel of death comes I am going to punch him in the throat.”
That made me laugh and when I had to call my father to tell him that his father had died I wanted to repeat it. I really wanted to say “Dad, you know grandpa got a couple of good shots in, but it is the angel of death, what are you going to do.”
But I didn’t say it because I didn’t think he would appreciate it and I was ok with that.
It was something a grandfather shared with his grandson. I could have said it to grandpa and he would have laughed.
Hell, any one of my parents’ grandchildren could have said it to their grandfather and he would have laughed.
But that wasn’t what needed to be said to my father, though I probably could have. Because when I told him grandpa died my father took a beat and then tried to comfort me.
I said it was ok, “Dad, I am 37. Grandpa was 92. I am alright. I don’t like it but what are you going to do. Time catches all of us.”
*****
I don’t know when I’ll make that final ascent but I expect I’ll fight to the end because it is part of me. Life is hard sometimes, far harder than it needs to be.
And if you dip yourself into the online hate that exists you need to be prepared for the after effect of the poison. And you need to know who and what you are so that when you come out you are ok.
Some people will agree and some will disagree. That is ok.
If it makes them feel good to believe a certain way that is fine. It doesn’t mean you have to or not. It is ok to have a difference of opinion even when you think using that will maintain distance between you and others.
Does love conquer all?
I don’t know but it is better than hate and ambivalence and I choose to believe there is more love than not. That is my armor and what I wear when I ride into and out of battle.
