The Bottle, the Routine and the Flying Wolf

A bottle broke on my head this week. Rather, it hit my head and broke when it landed. I have a 3″ diameter bump on my left temple, and a couple of small cuts within my hair. The bottle busted my head a teeny, weeny bit open. Since this happened when I was cleaning, I took it as a symbolic whack on the head. Time to stop and reflect. The story of the two wolves emerged.

“A fight is going on inside me,” the old man says to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents negative emotions like anger and greed, while the other represents positive qualities like joy and compassion. When asked which wolf wins, the grandfather answers: “The one you feed.”

My posts on this blog and my articles on Substack the last four months have been intense. Social justice, systemic racism, the dearth of alleged Black suicides, Nolan Wells, the executive order to restore truth and sanity, the roofied ice cubes, and the slave records for my great-great-grandparents, and on and on. I’ve been feeding the anger wolf with a steady diet of news like it’s a full-time job.

I have been moving like I’m the senior, female version of Huey Freeman from Boondocks, or rather a wannabe Huey. Huey is described as politically sapient and borderline militant. I’m just in a rut posing as a passion. That’s how I find myself unintentionally feeding the anger wolf. In my mind, to write, I have to keep up with the news, do deep dives, and read on subjects of interest during the week for observations and patterns. I’m doing all of this like it’s a full-time paying job.

Even walking down the street, I’d taken to mean-mugging, aggressive walking, and sidewalk games of chicken. Stop taking up the entire space walking four people broad, like it’s the Yellow Brick Road. Move!

Today, if “snap out of it” is a thing, I snapped — in a good way. Instead of being a sidewalk menace, in the space of an hour I retrieved a hat, helped someone with a baby carriage off the subway, and retrieved the shoe of someone who stumbled on the sidewalk. Honestly, it felt a lot better than that smug feeling of someone having to yield on the sidewalk. I’m not proud to admit it, but, you know, it may be relatable to someone. There is a balance between the wolves; feeding only the anger wolf does not serve the social recognition and change I champion. Time to feed the joyous wolf. This afternoon version of me — more palatable, lighter, happier — returned.