Hothead

After I went off on a rant about something or other one evening, I told the martial arts training partner I was with that I was sorry if I went off for too long. I’m just a real hothead sometimes, I told them.

“But you’re trying not to be,” this training partner said back. It was generous of them.

“Uhh, yeah…” I nodded, but also I thought … “… that’s not really true….”

I AM a hot head. I get angry. I see this as a strength and a weakness.

I feel like I can’t HELP in some ways that I am a hothead, but also, it’s because I grew up in a house with a really angry father, so anger was currency. If I can get the angriest and the loudest, I can win.

ANYWAY, when I was done training that night and back home, maybe it was even days later I thought to myself about the situation and arrived at my own resolution:

I’m not trying ‘not to be’ a hothead.

I’m allowing myself to be a hothead.

And I am enjoying it.

Meanwhile, I am listening carefully

for how to best

and most peacefully

channel that energy

into my art.

My Daughter Rides a Bike Now

Tonight we went to the blacktop at the elementary school so my 6-year-old daughter could practice riding her new bike. I hadn’t seen her ride a bike yet– she learned how to at bike camp a few weeks ago, but we hadn’t gotten a bike to fit her frame.

She zoomed steadily on her new pinkish purple strider. Pedal pedal pedaled with confidence. I had brought my speaker, so I asked if she wanted to jam to one of her tunes. “Are there any songs about bikes?” she asked.

“Yeah, there’s this one by Queen,” I said, as I pulled up the song “Bicycle Race.”

I put the song on and we pedaled around the blacktop together, her on her bike, me on mine. Freddie Mercury sang for us and I watched my girl feel the sense of freedom and joy offered by bike riding. I felt proud that she had picked it up quickly, but more than that, I felt happy that she could now feel the power she could generate on her own. The power to move herself through the world with deftness, and now, a little more speed.

My Wikipedia Page

I think about what I would like my Wikipedia page to say once I’m more well-known. Thinking about my Wikipedia page is a good exercise for thinking about what goals I would like to set for myself in life.

My page would say something like:

Michelle Terese Folk Johnson (born November 1, 1979) is an American Bandleader and Feminist Revolutionary.

******

That’s it, that’s all I’ve got for now. I have plenty ideas of what might follow, but also it’s late and I need to go to bed and this counts as today’s blog post for the current daily challenge I set for myself. Good night!