ON THE DAYS W/OUT SPARK
On the days when we feel like there is no electricity running through us, what are we to do? Shut it down before we even get going? A preemptive surrender without even giving it a chance. These are the days that hold the promise, because if we can recognize them they are a wide open canvas to possibilities.
The above sounds like a bunch of Zig Ziglar new age bullshit. Something concocted to put on a calendar or motivational poster. It’s also true. So take that for what it is.
The expectations we put on life are laughable some days. That we should awake focused and ready to smash the world in the face with enthusiasm and positivity. Some days I get up and shuffle all the way across the house to my coffee pot, tight from the years of exercise or at least the previous days shenanigans, my feet “whoosh-whooshing” across the wood floors as my hips get acclimated to the idea of raising my knees.
It’s on these days. That greatness can occur.
It’s 6:40 so, no real greatness yet, but I am poised for it. That’s what “they” say about people and greatness. That we are poised for it. Stoic, staring out into the morning, ready to kick it in the dick and move on to the lunchtime hour to see if it wants to “fuck around and find out”. This is how asskicking is done.
I find it helpful to play music. Something anthemic, which for me mostly means with loud guitars. The Hold Steady,Constructive Summer is on now. It’s first line “Me and my friends are like, the drums on Lust for Life.” The brilliance of this line is not lost on me. It calls into focus the great Iggy Pop song and one ups it so fast that Iggy is still confused.
Every once in a while, I’ll slow it down a little to build it up slowly. Starting with Butch Walker’s Chrissie Hind and slowly building for a couple tunes until I end at the volume on 10, my deafness defeated and increased by the need for loudness.
“Now we are cookin with gas!” The southern guy says, implying that electric heat isn’t hot enough.
I love how music does this. How it opens my heart and creates a gentle hum of giddiness. It truly opens the morning, or midday or whenever. Do you ever get a tingle in your chest when you hear a song? I describe it as a pulling. Like a taught fishing line anchored to my sternum, it pulls forward and my ribs feel like they are opening up, to suck in the day, the possibility, the chance to do something important, or at the least to move forward energized.
That’s what today feels like.
Today I awoke with dullness and lack. One song later. I’m heading out to start kicking.
Your challenge, if your morning is moving through sludge, is to stop. Go to your music player of choice. Think of that song that makes you feel alive. Start it at 3-4 on the volume if you need to ease in and slowly build it to dick kicking volume.
See. You’re ready for the day.
#hugsandhi5s
