Warrior for a day …

Amazon Warrior, Tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, 510–500 BC.

Some days are like that.

Arise with a grimace, fighting one’s way through dreamland to hop in the shower, cat nudged perhaps a little more firmly than intended out of harm’s way so as not to be tripped over and squashed.

Next up the whirlwind of coffee, breakfast, family wakey-wakey-time and out the door for the morning-I-can-do-this grind to work and the why-do-I-have-to-be-here mentality that makes every single interaction a grin-and-bear-it moment.

Usually at such times one longs for a huge heavy bag swaying at the threshold of the entryway to one’s workspace, preferably one that screams do-not-enter there’s a warrior inside ready to pounce with the added bonus of getting in some workout time. Or better yet with a hat-tip to a Twitter pal, a Star Trek inspired intruder alert with a phaser at the ready can also do the trick.

At heart is the sense of dissatisfaction with the state of things or as a friend said yesterday too much time pouring over the news and how the sensibilities that ensue can leave one bereft and in misery. Her response is to play with her four-year-old granddaughter. She fits herself into the lovely sweetness of playing dress-up and the humor of late afternoon cartoons, finding herself freed from turmoil and the heightened alert of thoughts and feelings overwhelmed by too many images of darkness at play in the world.

And it does seem true, we live in a constant assault of images and ideas–not so different from the tales of darkness of old which warned our forebears of what happens at the edge of the world where monsters and barbarians lay ready to pounce. In the post-industrial context of 21st Century “first-world” life, however, our cautionary tales are always among us and our sense of who is and is not a monster is framed for us by warring factions that cast a wide net for our allegiance whether it be social, political, religious, ethnic or some other mish-mash of ideas and constructs that has us all at each other’s throats.

My mother would say that when I’m in the “mood” it means I have my umbrella up against the little black cloud that follows me everywhere. She’d tease me unmercifully until I’d either descend further into my mood with a giant throated “leave-me-alone” or break the spell into peals of laughter.

At this juncture, I’m not certain if that warrior-for-the-day feeling is akin to that sort of umbrella defense, but I am quite sure that those sort of moods take on the cast of fighting the world for a bit of peace–and frankly for a piece of the world that’s free of strife, black moods and something akin to a nasty splinter that takes time to work out.