FaceBook Tales

                                                              Jogging, Walking, Notes

                                                                                By

                                                                         D.S. Brown

            DS is feeling great after a good workout. 

I updated my status in FaceBook and then switched to the Home tab.  I glanced at what my friends were doing.  There was much to read, much to consider.  Instead, I turned away.  I was still feeling the afterglow.  I felt energized.  I decided … to express myself.     

The workout had been quite strenuous.  An odd one, like many of the things I’ve taken up in the name of fitness, mental acuity, whatever …

As usual I started with a jog, slow but determined.  My muscles flexed and ached with the pressure of weight; mine and the weight I had added.  I looked down at the velcro strapped bags of sand tied around my legs.  They weighed ten pounds apiece.  It took a considerable amount of strength to put one foot in front of the other mile after mile.  But I did it, and the strain was … therapeutic.

The weights worked my muscles.  I could feel them working on my thighs, my legs, flexing vigorously as I increased my pace.  I fell into a rhythm, heart beating, lungs expanding and contracting, muscles building, strain increasing.  As the minutes passed I grew more comfortable, which allowed my mind to wander.  I could see the beauty of the world all around me, but nature’s greatness was shielded by the might of man-made designs. 

I’m a city boy, a southern city boy.  This is my element; and the combination of tree and bush, and blades of grass mixed with concrete and steel, glass and artificial light was all at once, soothing.  Only the rush of cars could have shattered the mood, but it was five o’clock in the morning, and the cars were over a mile away, on Interstate 85, moving at more than 75 miles an hour.  Rubber tires rolling on hardtop hummed, just like the sodium arc lamps in the industrial lights, and the bright red glow of neon, these were the sights and sounds of man.  And what do they lead me to thinking?

Money and power range across the surface of my mind these days like brackish water rushing over the shore at high tide.  I can't stop it no matter how hard I try.  I scheme, I dream, I plan and strategize, plotting moves both linear and circular, short steps in the tactical main to capitalize on the now opportunity, that could lead to the long-term strategic realization of a much brighter tomorrow; one that doesn't involve my company, or anyone else's for that matter.  No, if a company is involved, I dream of it being my own.

Ain't that a hoot?

Damn, how I dream; with such fierceness, such vigor.  I fancy myself an Imagineer.  May God allow for just one of my dreams to come to fruition, to realize just one fantasy where I create my own windfall through sheer will, raw tenacity, and stubborn bullheadedness.

I won’t quit.  

So, in reality the odds are if I don’t realize it now, I’ll realize it one day.  If I work at it diligently I can even fall forward into it over time, maybe by retirement.  I’ll accept that, if it’s all I am allowed.  But still, I won’t ever give up trying.  I can’t.  I’m simply not made that way.

And from there the daydreams go from fantasies of a probable reality to fantasies I want to put on paper, and of course publish and distribute myself.  I dream of stories, characters, how I might be as a super hero, a police officer, a criminal, President of the United States, a star traveler, a mutant, a god.

As you can see, I dream big. 

As I round the last curve, muscles straining, breathing deeply, I see the hill before me.  This is no easy task.  I’m carrying weights on my legs, weights on my arms, and in the last a small weight in my heart; it’s fear of the future.  I reach the base of the hill, and break into a sprint.  This is always the best part.  I push myself, shooting up the hill with all I have, increasing my speed as I go.  Sweat is pouring out of my body as I breathe in deep, the oxygen fueling my blood cells, steeling my will.

I crest the hill.  My heart is beating like a drum.  My lungs feel like they are expanding to twice their normal size.  The depression, the thought of failure, which had once again threatened to poison my mind, my body, my very soul, had once again been purged.  I can start the day.  I will be fine, at least until the evening, when I remember my age, and the thoughts of failure come calling again. 

Part of the reason why I live, Elle Lindsey Brown

www.2rulesof3.com

www.TheHandmill.com