Nobody's Fool

John Bonham he isn't, but he sure knows how to make some noise.

These past couple months I've woken up pretty much every morning to the same sound from the same drummer, one that relentlessly beat an anxious tattoo down in the panic zone by my navel. It has been a subtle but consistent drumbeat, not insistent in the way that nature calls, but one that drags me out of bed with a voice that goes beyond prepping my mind for work and other responsibilities: it is one filled with alarm. Each morning brings on that same feeling of dread, of "general quarters", one that propells my body to not only to let in the cat and turn on the coffee water but to get me in the mindset to gird my armor and stand by to repell all boarders.

But I must say that this morning was a bit different, that that mad beating was silent, or at least stilled for the moment. I woke up after a good nights sleep, knowing that the cat was still out and that lights were still burning. I went down, secured the lights and opened both front and back doors to let the cat choose his avenue of approach. Instead of lighting kitchen fires and firing up the internet I took a drive, a truncated version of the Stations of the Cross, hoping once again to beat the odds that have been rocking my world this summer and finally come across the walking Professora. Afterwards I came home to this place, to a pot of hot coffee and a snoozing cat. All well and good. I have miles to go before I sleep.

But back to that sleeping drummer. Somehow I have come to place that is a few steps past the crossroads, to a space on the game board that allowed me to pass go and leave behind the filthy lucre of my job. Somewhere along the line I grew hair where hair was lacking and today I let that freak flag fly. Today I will let those that have helped guide me assist me in telling the powers that be that I am not their lackey, their whipping boy, their punk, any longer. Today is the day that I will proclaim that I am nobody's fool. That proclamation will allow me to not only work hard and walk tall but go forth in the world with a new sort of power, a renewed sense of wisdom, one that says to the frighteners that you can't take away my birthday and damn it, know that you never will.

Yesterday was but another day but still, it was one of those kinds of days that said to me that life is full and remarkable and filled with a sort of passion that only comes when you show the world that you have a zest for living. Yesterday I found myself messing about in a tide pool with friends and I came away from that experience knowing that life is just that, one massive tidal zone, one constantly shifting between water and sand, light and dark, misstep and fortune. It made many things clear to me, mainly that time marches on, that life as we lived it was just that, a time in the past, and that we have many things to do before we settle down into the comfort of that grand sleep that awaits us at the end of life.

I woke up this morning to the sound of a symphony, a jazz quartet, a sock hop garage band playing down in my belly. I woke up and relieved the tired drummer of his anxious instrument, had him put up his drum for awhile. I am tired of hearing the incessant tattoo of that fearful drumbeat. There will be plenty of other opportunties for general quarters in this life but for now it's time rebuild and repair and sooth the tired muscles around my very ragged heart. Right now I wish more than anything just to hear what I want to hear, sweetness, pleasantness, the sound of my children's laughter, not ugly sounds that the enemy camp wishes me to hear through it's psy-ops programming. Today I snub my nose at Goliath and tuck away my sling into my belt, for today is the day that I begin my walk away from the madness and let my life become my own again.

Just know that from this day forward I would rather be ragged and hungry than to live with pockets full of jingle and a belly full of fear.

Salud!