Kick Ass

 

Wasn't feeling great this morning when I opened my email and found a friend had called me an inspiration and kick ass.

I told them I didn't feel like it but was just too stubborn to stop.

They said that being 'too stubborn to stop' was the very definition of 'kick ass'.

Well, I suppose I had to concede that is one way of looking at it!  

My mother used to call me bull-headed, wondering where I got my stubborn streak from.  My mother a French Canadian, growing up in the depression in Little Italy in Montreal because her father had gone bankrupt.  My father, from a culturally German immigrant family, fought in WWII in spite of being suspected of being a German 'sympathizer'.  He was on Juno Beach on that June day - and never forgot it.

And she wondered where I got my 'stubborn streak' from?

There were many days when she would fuss at me about being 'bad' because of my bull-headedness and I wanted so badly to ask her if she had ever looked in the mirror.  But that would not have gone well for me, so I never did.

OTOH, they also gave me a good 'puritan' work ethic.  Both growing up during the depression meant they knew want and they knew work.  And they made sure both their kids also knew work so that we didn't have 'want'.  As best they could.

Having dreams and goals has been lifelong for me.  Even now, even retired (for certain values of) I still have them.  I have daily goals, weekly goals, bigger goals, sometimes goals that take years to complete.  Like the GCW master weaver certificate.  Writing not one but two books, each of which took about 5 years to publish.  And now?  Another one.  Smaller scale.  Less ambitious.  But still.

Last week Life made me stop weaving until the loom was fixed and while I fussed and fumed, I also recognized that it was an opportunity to do some things I'd been procrastinating over.  Getting the essays written (so far) into some kind of organization happened.  Once it did, my muse began feeding me more topics.  :D  

We studied poetry in high school and I still remember the Dylan Thomas poem

The first 'verse' especially:  

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

That sounds pretty kick ass to me.