What should you do with a brick?

Photo from Mystery Village, January 2019

Hi, can't sleep. Figured I'd write you.

If someone gave you a brick, what would be your first instinct or thought?

Throw it? Put it down? Crumble it? Hand it back? Carry it? Keep it? Decorate it with tea lights? Try to burn it? Hold onto it until you sank?

My first instinct is to question it. What purpose is a brick going to serve me right now? WHY are you giving this to me?

Tonight I remembered, I need bricks to build stuff.

(think like large terra-cotta home building bricks)

Every situation I've ever been dealt, every person I've met, every place I've been, everything I've seen, everything I've spent time on or in or around - I consider to be a brick. It's a tangible object reference for managing some self-behaviors and dealing with stuff. Bricks for me are the learning experiences I take from my encounters with the world.

Lemons, you say. Life gives you lemons. I say life gives you bricks. Lemons rot and make you do sour faces. While life may make provide sour faces, life doesn't rot. Yes, life may crumble, but it doesn't rot.

Bricks. Go with it.

I remember having a Spring of 2016-first-and-only-meeting-that-lasted-not-even-20-minutes with a Scrantonian Idiot named Will (actual name, no sense in anonymity with this story). After realizing he had met a very strong and independent woman, he told me with some of the sensitive issues I struggle with and some interpersonal skills that I very clearly need to work on that I've built a very nice wall around myself, my time, and my resources, and if I ever wished to build a door, to call him. (Forward to the of the story: I never found it necessary to either build a door or to call him.)

While most people are into tearing down walls, I'm actually into building them. Or building stuff.

As I was putting on my coat and stepping away from an "unhealthy conversation starter", I responded I didn't see it as a wall. I saw it as a set of steps which I thought I was building to stand a little taller and see above it all. Each thing I've encountered (happy and challenging) I used to gain strength and height and to keep on rising.

Yet, tonight I see maybe I've taken these bricks and made a wall... and while Will was an idiot, by global standards, he may have been an insightful one.

A wall is a supportive structure, right?

A wall serves to keep things in, rather than keep things out - or vice versa.

A wall seeks to divide space.

A wall is a structure used to hold back pressure.

So yes, Will... I think I did build a wall and as I sat here sleepless thinking about something, I turned it into a brick and placed it on the wall.

I am supported with these bricks by the people I keep in my life, places I've walked, and situations that have molded me.

I let good things in and don't let the not-so-good things get to me. These things have taught me to defend my mind, defend my heart, defend my actions, and defend my time.

I can divide my space into what serves me and what is best left alone.

I know how to hold back the pressure of life and work and family and flooded apartment hallways and VPN networks and strained friendships.

I'm the one building the wall. There isn't anyone to build it for me.

I like the steps reference, but coming to Qatar has given me so much more than a lift. It's shown me what is worth protecting.... another purpose of a wall.

So I'm going to take the thoughts of my fall break adventures, my amazing Qatar friendships, my incredible job, another epic weekend on the horizon, some really fun November plans, and 7 more Thursdays until December break and some travel - the realization that I've got everything I want right here in the palm of my hand - and I'm going to slide them into a nice row, stick them together, and call it another good building day. Because bricks can really sink you if you hold onto them.

Maybe it's not a wall. Maybe it's a tower. Maybe it's a tower with steps. All I know is that I'm building.

I like this structure. This I will defend.

Don't mess with how I'm building it.

And don't mess with me either, unless you're going to be ok with me turning you into a brick with what my tenant calls "sorcery". I got a good thing going on right now, but I am always up for a new brick.

So on the anniversary of my really amazing all night long date with an Italian waiter, in Venice, during a 24 hour transit strike, walking through the empty fish market stalls and on the patios of closed wine cellars, water taxi hopping, and ducking into piazzas and campos... and a whole lot of really swanky memories that wayyyyyyy outdo the 20 minute idiot encounter... I say, thanks for the bricks. Lemons would serve me no purpose. I didn't like limoncello anyway, even poured from a shared glass by a gorgeous waiter with these beautiful eyes and crisp white shirt in Italy... Nope.

Bricks.

But if you want to send John Cleese to toss some French Insults over this wall, then "Hello, who is it?" :D

Slainte.

PS: To the brick who showed me my own place in my wall tonight by non-intentionally handing me a brick representing myself - "You can ask him, but I don't think he'll be very keen. We've already got one... (I told him we already got one... <snickers from French Soldiers>)