When I accepted the challenge of helping this little company survive, there were just the four of us. We worked round the clock. We did things we thought were impossible. And did them well. We pulled it out of the fire and started making stupid kinds of money and enjoyed prosperity.
Just when I thought we would coast a little bit, safe and secure, the owners did what they said they were *not* interested in. They expanded. They doubled our staff. Then doubled it again. Then built two sister companies, each one at times threatening the resources of the other.
And again we were doing things we had never done before and didn’t think we could do. And… again there was unbearable stress. Every waking moment, taxed. Feeling like raging and then feeling empty, emotions bottoming out. Riding that roller coaster day after day, week in, week out, year after year. Feeling older than I am. Sleepless nights and sleepless nights. Clients that refuse to pay. Major clients that threaten to go to another firm. Location after location, story after story. Trying to make deadlines but unable to keep everyone happy.
Tempted every night to just fall into a bottle of scotch and let it all go. Bottle of Jack in my desk drawer, just in case. This one still unopened. Disciplined only just enough to know that road would be disastrous. I need my mind. I don’t have time to be drunk. I don’t dare risk losing my edge.
And then there’s lunch. Lunch is meditation time. Recovery time. Recharging time. I get an hour to spend walking through the fir forest along the lake or sitting at the marsh.
Sitting at the marsh right now is amazing. Geese and ducks and exotic calls of birds I had forgotten during the long silence of winter. Pheasants crowing near me, and across the inlet in the cattails, and over by the stables. Drumming of a woodpecker. Whistling wood ducks startled by my presence after paddling through the inlet to where I am sitting on rocks behind a pile of rotten planks.
I forgot my lighter today. I have only wooden matches. The lightest of breezes is playing the devil with my pipe, tantalizing me. Each match lights, grows in flame, but as I bring it lower to the pipe, flaps out and turns to sulfurous wisps of dead smoke.
At first I’m lighting match after match, trying to get as close to the planks as possible, turning my head this way this time, that way next time. Then I think to myself, Why are you throwing down the matches? Hold onto them. If more than one catches, you’ll have a better flame.
Soon I have six burnt matches. Seven burnt matches. When I have about eight burnt matches, they all catch the flame. And now I am trying to light my pipe with a hand-sized bonfire. The enormous flame is flapping around like a hot orange flag, burning my fingers. Having succeeded in finally getting a fire, I’m not about to drop it just because my fingers are burning. But my fingers revolt. Against my will they fling their conflagration to the dirt. I stomp it out blindly, grinding it in without looking down, because my eyes are focused on the lovely plume of smoke flowing out from my pipe. It worked.
I didn’t bring a tamper and I’m not going to waste time snapping off a branch. I touch the raised ashes down with my finger and test the draw. Still well lit. Thank you, Lord.
I settle back against the stack of planks to watch the ducks, listen to the pheasants, feel the sun, smell the cattails, and study the thick moss here and there on the rocks, still vibrant green from last night’s rain, a little velvet painting of Ireland, it occurs to me, though I’ve never been there.
Now my butt and brain are having a conversation in spite of me, as if I’m not there between them. These conversations are never good. I’ll tell you what was said but leave out some of the harsher language and threats.
Butt is complaining to brain that the rock I am on is too small, too hard, and too pointy. Move the body, brain. Stand it up and find me another place to sit. But brain is telling butt to just put up with it a little longer, just 30 minutes more, 40 minutes more, tops. Brain is on break and doesn’t want to be involved in relocating.
Butt interrupts to restate the case more loudly. Evidently the old man’s butt cheeks aren’t as firm as in his younger years. And now I’m tense again, helplessly caught between them, wondering if I get to continue relaxing or am going to be ordered to get up. I crouch down, afraid of the answer, making myself smaller, less noticeable. Even my own ass is boss of me, and I’m trying to hide from it. Everybody is my boss these days. I can remember when I had higher status. That was years ago, though. I’m just a peon now, a grunt. A hired hand sitting on a sore butt and trying to stop his brain from thinking right now.
I really don’t want to move again. I just got my pipe going. My fingers have returned to normal body temperature, though they sting yet. And I’m sipping the still-warm coffee I brought along. Watch the ducks. Listen to the pheasants crowing. Wonder if there are fish. Look for the woodpecker. Be mesmerized by the breeze making ripples on the water.
Enjoy your smoke.
Just when I thought we would coast a little bit, safe and secure, the owners did what they said they were *not* interested in. They expanded. They doubled our staff. Then doubled it again. Then built two sister companies, each one at times threatening the resources of the other.
And again we were doing things we had never done before and didn’t think we could do. And… again there was unbearable stress. Every waking moment, taxed. Feeling like raging and then feeling empty, emotions bottoming out. Riding that roller coaster day after day, week in, week out, year after year. Feeling older than I am. Sleepless nights and sleepless nights. Clients that refuse to pay. Major clients that threaten to go to another firm. Location after location, story after story. Trying to make deadlines but unable to keep everyone happy.
Tempted every night to just fall into a bottle of scotch and let it all go. Bottle of Jack in my desk drawer, just in case. This one still unopened. Disciplined only just enough to know that road would be disastrous. I need my mind. I don’t have time to be drunk. I don’t dare risk losing my edge.
And then there’s lunch. Lunch is meditation time. Recovery time. Recharging time. I get an hour to spend walking through the fir forest along the lake or sitting at the marsh.
Sitting at the marsh right now is amazing. Geese and ducks and exotic calls of birds I had forgotten during the long silence of winter. Pheasants crowing near me, and across the inlet in the cattails, and over by the stables. Drumming of a woodpecker. Whistling wood ducks startled by my presence after paddling through the inlet to where I am sitting on rocks behind a pile of rotten planks.
I forgot my lighter today. I have only wooden matches. The lightest of breezes is playing the devil with my pipe, tantalizing me. Each match lights, grows in flame, but as I bring it lower to the pipe, flaps out and turns to sulfurous wisps of dead smoke.
At first I’m lighting match after match, trying to get as close to the planks as possible, turning my head this way this time, that way next time. Then I think to myself, Why are you throwing down the matches? Hold onto them. If more than one catches, you’ll have a better flame.
Soon I have six burnt matches. Seven burnt matches. When I have about eight burnt matches, they all catch the flame. And now I am trying to light my pipe with a hand-sized bonfire. The enormous flame is flapping around like a hot orange flag, burning my fingers. Having succeeded in finally getting a fire, I’m not about to drop it just because my fingers are burning. But my fingers revolt. Against my will they fling their conflagration to the dirt. I stomp it out blindly, grinding it in without looking down, because my eyes are focused on the lovely plume of smoke flowing out from my pipe. It worked.
I didn’t bring a tamper and I’m not going to waste time snapping off a branch. I touch the raised ashes down with my finger and test the draw. Still well lit. Thank you, Lord.
I settle back against the stack of planks to watch the ducks, listen to the pheasants, feel the sun, smell the cattails, and study the thick moss here and there on the rocks, still vibrant green from last night’s rain, a little velvet painting of Ireland, it occurs to me, though I’ve never been there.
Now my butt and brain are having a conversation in spite of me, as if I’m not there between them. These conversations are never good. I’ll tell you what was said but leave out some of the harsher language and threats.
Butt is complaining to brain that the rock I am on is too small, too hard, and too pointy. Move the body, brain. Stand it up and find me another place to sit. But brain is telling butt to just put up with it a little longer, just 30 minutes more, 40 minutes more, tops. Brain is on break and doesn’t want to be involved in relocating.
Butt interrupts to restate the case more loudly. Evidently the old man’s butt cheeks aren’t as firm as in his younger years. And now I’m tense again, helplessly caught between them, wondering if I get to continue relaxing or am going to be ordered to get up. I crouch down, afraid of the answer, making myself smaller, less noticeable. Even my own ass is boss of me, and I’m trying to hide from it. Everybody is my boss these days. I can remember when I had higher status. That was years ago, though. I’m just a peon now, a grunt. A hired hand sitting on a sore butt and trying to stop his brain from thinking right now.
I really don’t want to move again. I just got my pipe going. My fingers have returned to normal body temperature, though they sting yet. And I’m sipping the still-warm coffee I brought along. Watch the ducks. Listen to the pheasants crowing. Wonder if there are fish. Look for the woodpecker. Be mesmerized by the breeze making ripples on the water.
Enjoy your smoke.
