Leading With My Left

"What would you like for [insert special occasion here]?"

"I don't want anything."
Translation: "Use your imagination. I'll treasure anything you give me, if it's from your heart."

As you may have already discerned, I'm not big on receiving material gifts, at least of the store-bought variety. Over the years, I have learned that too many people just don't have the knack for gift giving.

My family always gave me incredibly thoughtful gifts, things that they had observed I needed throughout the year but would not acquire for myself, or accouterments that I would consider luxuries in my somewhat voluntarily minimalist existence. My dearest friends sometimes enjoy making gifts, original little works of art imbued with love. I treasure each of them, these gifts from the heart.

This kind of gift giving is intuitive. Being raised in an intuitively giving environment, I've become quite adept at it, and I strive to seek out the unusual, hard to find, and thoughtful gift when the need arises, and sometimes just for the fun of it. Not everyone can give intuitively, granted, but some people are just too lazy to do it.

A fellow I once dated asked what I wanted for my birthday. "I don't want anything." So what did he get me? A pair of hiking boots. Romantically challenged, perhaps, but it's the thought that counts.

A man I was engaged to, in response to "I don't want anything," liked to give me two pieces of very expensive jewelry for each special occasion, and I could choose and keep the one I liked best. Invariably, even without knowing how much he had spent on either of them, I selected the one that was less costly, and this amazed him. I explained that it was incidental; I chose the ones I did because he either had a hand in the piece's design, or he went to great lengths to obtain it. Simply put, there was more of him in it.

I knew a family whose practice it was for their son to submit a monumental list of material things he wanted for Christmas. It was not unusual to receive a list with 30 or more items on it, a majority of them quite expensive. The son, in accordance with his family's practice, would pester me for a list every year. "I don't want anything." His family would always persist until I relinquished a list, thereby absolving them of any creative responsibility.

One year, just to shut him up, I came up with the most outlandish gift idea I could muster under pressure: I told him I wanted a punching bag. So he immediately went out and bought me a punching bag. (Did I really want it? No.)

For several years it sat in my mother's basement, unused, serving as the butt of a different joke for each of us – for him, my recalcitrant reluctance to exercise with it, and for me, well, just the fact that he bought it in the first place.

After my return to Georgia, I actually did start using it a bit as my strength and schedule allowed. Today's workout prompted this post, in fact. I've observed that while I could inflict some serious damage with a right punch or kick, I'm still a little weak on my left side. I think if I continue leading with my left for a while, I can achieve a better balance of strength.

I think left is underrated. I contemplate some of the relevant lefts in my life: left brain, left eye, and left hand; direction, intellect, spirituality, and politics. I recognize that each of these serves as half of a micro-balance, and those balances, along with countless others, contribute to the macro-balance of being.

Balance is good, but it requires a lot of work. It doesn't just happen on its own. So, I'll start small, with the punching bag.

Hello, left.

Bone Tired

Sometimes, you just can't sleep. Can't as in mustn't, not can't as in unable to. I think Lewis Grizzard would have referred to it as "cain't", as it connotes a certain sense of urgency (much like his definitions of naked and nekkid; naked means you aren't wearing any clothing, but nekkid means you're not wearing any clothing and you're up to something). Should necessity dictate that you juice every single minute of the day for every drop of time you can squeeze out of it, and though you'd love nothing more than to sit still or rest for a just a few minutes, you simply can't because you feel what you are tending to takes greater priority than your body's pitiful cries for mercy.

At the time of this writing (not posting, mind you, since I've yet to see an accurate timestamp on my blogs), I have been awake for almost seventy hours. Though I am still about a day away from my threshold for physical fatigue, it is starting to wear on me a bit. Second wind? Pffft. I'm probably on my twentieth or thirtieth by now.

I consider different things that might cause us to subject ourselves to such sleep deprivation. I think of new mothers with their new babies; new lovers as they explore, invade, and conquer each other; cross-country truckers eating Slim Jims and drinking scalding, black coffee (yes, it really does work; it has something to do with the meat arousing one's carnivorous instincts, combined with the hot coffee eroding the tender linings of your body); wrapping up a career maker or breaker project; holding vigil over a sick friend, loved one, or pet; journeying to a holy land, or even simply possessing a profound fear of the dark and its nether-realm monstrosities beneath one's bed.

I'm almost ashamed to say that I like this altered state. My brain expands, and with the extra room it seems, at least from this side, to be less cluttered. I think in simpler terms. I refocus myself. I'm balanced on an edge, somewhere between a complete physical shutdown and just barely containing a slightly-nervous energy within the confines of my skin. My hands don't tremble, but my fingertips are freezing. My eyes are clear, but they are so weary. My skin is flushed and slightly dehydrated, even though my ankles swell a bit. My mouth is dry, and sometimes my heart does loopty-loops until I pay attention to it. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty good.

So why do I? My reason is much less glamorous than those I mentioned previously; it's simply a synapse misfire.

But I sure know the meaning of "bone tired". Bone tired occurs when you are so tired that everything hurts, all the way down to where your muscles are latched to your bones with creaky sinew, and then the hurt leaches into the bones themselves. For me, it's primarily my teeth. Just like I know it's really cold outside when it makes my teeth hurt, I know I'm really tired when they all growl in my jaw if I try to eat a candy bar.

I'll get all the sleep I need when I'm dead.

Interloper at the Cabaret

I found a field of black-eyed susans today. They danced in the wind, as if in a cabaret, their seedheads in various states of undress and their petals blushing crimson. As I stood above them, I felt the cloud of humid heat they radiated, almost oppressive in the midst of our drought. The fearless flyers paid me no mind as I explored the immodest susans with them, while they all danced for the sun.

On the Subject of Floral Modesty

The gardenias just bloomed, crisp and white like paper, with a gentle fragrance that wafts around on the breeze. I am learning that certain flowers simply seem more lustful than others, and that these seem quite demure when compared to the lilies of last week. I must remember that they aren't trying to be attractive to other flowers; rather, they seek out only those fearless flyers (and amateur photographers) that are enticed to molest them.

I ponder the subject of modesty among flowers. I, for one, am happy that they aren't.