Life is Good

54.

Approximately half-way between the strident clamor and the appalling silence rests a single voice. As soft as goose down yet hard as snowy white Carrara marble. It is what I commonly refer to as B natural, not too sharp and not too flat, a note with pitch so precise and perfect that it can break not only crystal but concrete as well. It has been my self-assessed fatal-flaw, a hamartia the size and scope of which Socrates and Plato would surely stand in awe. It also keeps me honest. For I am the fist to admit that without this relentless reminder of my frailty and humanity, my runaway ego might never be caught. It it the compass that calibrates my realtime course correction along the straight and narrow path that deeply desires to be crooked and wide. Milton wondered if Satan was asking us that if being bad was more fun that being good, where is the problem?

The ‘Keep your cover and continue your practice’ order from TOM was beginning to take on a totally new meaning, one including the immense frustration of having to be patient as the world, with its myriad problems all needing immediate attention and problem solving, repeats its daily circumnavigation around its sun. So we wait. And prepare. And study, work, relax and enjoy the opportunity to participate in the freedoms we fight so hard to protect. For the warrior, this is a double-edge sword. Because we like the juice. We like the action and live for the moment when all our training and readiness is called upon to settle another nasty dispute between war and peace, between good and evil or between fear and freedom. The skirmish can be mano-a-mano, one-on-one, or our team against another, or as it sometimes plays out, our team versus another entire army. Our odds of success, with sometimes thousands of lives at stake, is dramatically increased by the way we are able to adequately dial the intensity down, rest, recover and learn the lessons from the past. The adage of the best teacher being one’s last mistake is one of the few in which we have unanimous agreement. Here, the margin for error, where one’s last mistake could introduce one’s last breath, and that of your partner’s and unit’s as well, requires a keen respect for the delicate balance between always on and occasionally off. It is in this reality that we truly test the depth of our combined character.

It is also a place where I once struggled and now seem to thrive. After all the years listening to Tom Petty sing about the waiting being the hardest part, I now harmonize with Paul & Art taking the middle part of ‘slow down ya move too fast you gotta make the morning last.’ This maturation wasn’t easy, it was a process filled with tension and self-doubt, the tiger that now hunts with experience and patience was once a caged animal snarling for a good fight.

Today is a rare off-day. Sore muscles relax, tensions fade and batteries re-charge. The sun shines, laughter mixes with chirping birds hanging to overhead wires as kabobs sizzle on the grill. Callahan has decided to spin the entire three-disk set of Europe 72 and we are currently hypnotized by Garcia’s six-string exploration of time and space during Morning Dew. Life as the saying goes, is good.

My phone vibrates.