Whack On The Side Of The Head

The other night while languidly sipping some exotic wine in a local wine bar, a 15 lb. speaker fell from the ceiling onto my head.

Now I do realize that 'Whack On The Side Of The Head' is a book about change; about whacking you out of habitual thought patterns. But isn't also languidly having a glass of wine? Choose your poison I guess. My poison ended in a bloody bump on my head as large as a baseball, and a day in ER to be diagnosed with a concussion and whiplash.

When I told my mother, she didn't ask if I have brain damage. She probably figures not much would change if I did. But instead she broke out into hysterical laughter. My jaw dropped. "So, all that latent hostility gets to come out now eh?" She only laughed harder and said, "But you were in a wine bar, a wine bar? and a speaker from the ceiling fell on your head? I mean what kind of 'off the wall'...no pun intended..." more laughter. Oy vey. She was just having too much fun with this.

"Alrighty then... moving right along." I said, as I waited for her to get through her parental poetic justice. I just ate my Cornflakes and mushy bananas and fantaized about being there at her house in Reno Nevada, picking up all 110 lbs of her, shaking her, setting her hard into her chair and demanding the pity I deserved.
Instead, it was too hard not to laugh a little myself.

For most, an incident like this would bring mothers to near hysterics in fear. And friends, quips of laughter from the absurdity of it. In my case, just the opposite.

The poor restaurant owner...in tears. Which broke me open in front of my psuedo-date. Not one of my finer moments.

This is one of those things that is both a freak accident and yet uncomfortably intimate if your a person who pays attention to patterns.
A year ago, a half of a block from this wine bar I was hit on the drivers side of my car by an uninsured driver who ran a stop sign. I was where I am now. Searching for home outside of Oregon. The accident drained my time and savings for a year. So, here I am in round 2, skipping all over the country side, adding up the pros and cons, staging the future and giving it all that percentage of margin of what I just can't know. Whew! How do any of us ever manage to make a decision? But I wonder if the decision making process is as close to truth as we get; more than it's result?

Back to this question of patterns, how much personal? How much freak accident? Well, I have no idea. Except that I'm still moving out of Oregon and I won't be hanging out in that neighborhood anymore!
Uncanny still is the same neighborhood, same side of the head, (left) and same life circumstances.

I wonder if my 'Whack' had any parallels with the famous book:
A WHACK ON THE SIDE OF THE HEAD --- HOW TO UNLOCK YOUR MIND FOR INNOVATION
by Roger von Oech

So I made some notes:

HOW TO UNLOCK YOUR MIND FOR INNOVATION
* I've been waiting for the pleasant high of unlearning and unlocking repetitive thoughts and patterns before the speaker fell on my head. I've been resting like a lizard on a warm Brazilian rock; patiently waiting for innovative thought. And they do come. But I can't remember them because they came in a Vicodan Haze.

CREATIVE WHACKS--Jolt you out of your box into creative thinking.
* I'm on the site now www.creativethink.com. I'm hitting the button that says 'give me another creative whack.'
So, I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment. But after 5 sleepless nights from flashbacks of the 'boom' I'm hoping to discover a little extra benefit, some feature from the experience besides the fact that I get to see my beloved chiropractor a lot now. So, here goes:

CREATIVE Whack: Use your shield. New ideas can be threatening, and they often provoke a negative reaction.
*Given that I didn't hear the speaker coming, I just couldn't get to my 14th century bronze shield on time. Life's a learning experience though. I'll do better next time.

CREATIVE Whack: Exaggerate. Imagine a joke so funny that you can't stop laughing for a month.
* Well, my mother already did that. "I" was the joke. But payback's a mother&&^((0. No pun intended.

There's more 'Whacks in the pack'. However, I guess I could look at this whole thing as some cosmic hit that according to von Oech has the potential to stir my brain trails into changing direction, forging new paths of thinking and doing.
But sadly, I feel more like my brain has been relocated to another part of the world and the road map went out of print.

I hope to find that road map in a used bookstore. Or put my laughing Mother on 'walk about' to find it--let's see who's laughing then. : )

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Postscript: I really am okay. Just a little jangled. Dakota is a bit more set in his ways and doesn't take much interest in change the way I do. He doesn't see what all the fuss is all about.

Comments

[Simone]

DAMN, girl! Sorry about your mom. What a whack thing for her to do.
I wonder how your date reacted, it being a first date and all?