Saturday, February 28, 2009

Speed Bumps

If you live long enough, you have a lot of failures along the way--not necessarily the colossal kind that alters your life irrevocably, but the awkward, the expensive, the disappointing: speed bumps rather than road blocks as my brother used to say. When I lived a life more fraught with that kind of failure, I became adept at dodging, slowing down, gritting my teeth or some combination of above. When I worked as a pawn in a corporation with too many leaders and too little leadership, I became a modern day artful dodger with my evasive manoeuvres. When I reflected with a coworker on a pretty dismal 5 years of this, he said that just to have survived was an achievement. Sometimes it is hard to find the success in so much dodging, but the experience was helpful.

Oddly enough, after a patch of too much success I had neglected that practice of scanning for speed bumps. Perhaps I had grown to think that I was immune. At any rate, when the speed bump came up I just did not pay enough attention.

So now I am collecting myself after the bumps and bruises of my own misguided inattention. I have no one else to blame. The media love a scapegoat, and it can be seductive but it can be the road block after the speed bump, if you let it. Having jounced over many a speed bump, I am now getting back into the drill. Reflecting, reinventing, salvaging what can be reused and sweeping up the damage as tidily as I can.

Last night was two glasses of red wine and just now sitting and typing--or trying to--with my favourite cat Solomon wiggling and squiggling in my lap and over the keyboard.

6 Comments:

At 4:20 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

THere's hardly anything that two glasses of wine won't cure. As Jimmy Buffet says in "Margaritaville," after blowing out his flipflop and cutting his heel on a pop-top and having to come back home, "But there's booze in the blender and soon it will render that frozen concoction that helps me hang on."

 
At 4:21 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That wasn't anonymous, that was me. I goofed. Well, time for a glass of red wine (not really).

 
At 5:24 PM, Blogger landgirl said...

Oh, yes red wine and/or dancing to Dog Talk's cover version of "Red red wine"

Remember when we managed to go out on a Friday afternoon and 1/1/2 glasses of red wine.

 
At 3:32 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

ohh, yes, I do, I do remember. I also like the following line in "Jeremiah was a Bullfrog": something like, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog--a very good friend of mine. I never understood a single word he said, but he had some mighty fine wine. Joy to the world, All the boys and girls, joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me."

 
At 9:31 AM, Blogger landgirl said...

Oh, Ms piggy, I, too, remember Jeremiah bullfrog fondly. And that Phrase--
"Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea. Joy to you and me" is a good one. I think I'll use it on the side of one of the boats I'm making for Joanne Kaar. So far there is only one set of boats from the US. I remain hopeful that some one else (perhaps you?)will take the plunge.

 
At 2:24 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you'll send me the URL I'll take a look. I'm too lazy (efficient?--hah!) to look over your previous posts to find the URL.

 

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