Friday Words Of Wisdom(Or Wisdom According To Me)

I’m coming to the conclusion that you should not ask the universe the question “Can it get any worse?”. Nine times out of ten the reply from the universe is “Hold my beer.”

Just when you get a day or two reprieve from it all, something else is lurking just around the corner waiting to pants you in front of the world. And of course you wore that one pair of novelty boxers because you were out of your regular ones. It’s par for the course. It is the way. It is inevitable.

It’s nothing we can’t handle, mind you. When your kids are stumbling a bit in life, if you’re the kind of parent that worries and wants nothing but the best for them you tend to take a stumble right along with them(emotionally at the very least.) Any parent worth their weight in homemade birthday cards will suffer with their kids. If you don’t, I can’t imagine what that parent/child relationship is all about. I don’t mean fix their problem for them, but offer solutions and ideas on how to better their situation. Not throwing money at them, but instilling some of those life lessons you’ve learned over the years and helping them find their own way to the answers.

You know, how parents should be.

Some problems can be helped and avoided. Others? Well some are just those little surprises that pop up like an annoying Jack-In-The-Box you kick in the hallway at 3 am stumbling to the bathroom. A chain reaction of stubbed toe, obnoxious music, and a laughing clown which wakes up the house.

The problems our collective family crew have been encountering the last three months have been a mixture of both. Poor decisions lead to emotional crisis, which works its way to painful life lessons and “gotta move on” hard talks. No matter how old your kids get you’re still the worrying parent(or if you’re not me, maybe just concerned parent) hoping your kids get it figured out.

I’m finding solace once again in music and writing. I mean, the situation isn’t dire here or anything. This is just yet another evolution in the parent/child paradigm. Our kid is figuring it out, slowly but not without a few bumps and bruises. It’s kind of a 70/30 split between can be helped and life pulling the rug out from under you.

But like I said, music has been my coping mechanism. I haven’t created any in the last couple of weeks(been itching to plug in my Jazzmaster and get loud), but I’ve been immersing myself in albums. Lots of hazy drone and ambient(thanks again Oneohtrix Point Never); as well as hip hop, jazz, some classical and even some classic prog for good measure. Yes, Miles, Aesop Rock, Dvořák, as well as new Kurt Vile have been spinning on heavy rotation in my head.

Music has always been the emotional salve that helps soothe those rug burns life likes to bestow upon us. From spinning my mom and dad’s Kiss albums on my Fisher Price record player as a 6-year old, to quiet Friday nights in middle school cleaning my room and playing Cinderella and Dokken cassettes, to Friday nights in adulthood sitting in my comfortable chair having a pint and spinning Freddie Hubbard’s First Light or Slayer’s Reign in Blood, music is the great leveler. It’s always provided my greatest escape from the outside world, next to movies and books. It pulls you from the doldrums and lifts you to some elevated place. A place your mind can breathe and reboot. For that, I’m forever grateful.

So yeah, don’t ask if it can get any worse. Take it from me, it can. But instead take every stumble in stride, and every win with grace and appreciation. John Lennon said “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” So I guess life is the good, bad, and ugly, while those plans are trying to figure out how to avoid the bad and ugly. Life doesn’t work without all three working in unison. If it’s all good, you never truly appreciate it. If it’s all bad and ugly, well you become a shell of a human; hollowed out, bitter, and full of spite. It’s the balance of all three that makes a life.

Though, if I have a choice on the bad I’d prefer inconveniences over irrevocable poundings, thank you very much. And a steady stream of great music to soundtrack it all.