Breaking wrenches

There are days when I find myself bemused by the wicked sense of humor the Universe can show me from time to time.

"Hey!" It bellows from the heavens, lobbing It's celestial curve-ball at me, "catch THIS!"

"This" turns out to be shaped like a wrench. With a monkey attached.

Stretching out, I grasp for the unexpected missile. On this day, I manage to catch the end of it as it sails past my head. I grapple and juggle with the monkey-wrench as I try to gain a purchase on the stinker. Finally it comes to rest in my hands. I look at it with disgust.

Sigh.

Farming is a daily hopscotch of ups and downs, punctuated with some slippery sideways maneuvers. And we're just getting started. Our livestock are fish and honeybees. There's only so much trouble they can get into. There are no large animals to be up all night with while we wrestle with mastitis or colic or complicated, messy births. We have no house on the farm, nor is there any electricity to run the invisible home. The only running water is that which continually flows down the hill following the incessant spring rainfall.

At times I feel like such a newbie that it is painful. The monkey-wrenches pile up in the proverbial corner, having been vanquished and neutralized. I wonder if there is a monkey-wrench limit in the Transcendental General Assembly's Rules and Regulations.

There are lots of cliches written about this phenomenon: "life isn't fair" or "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" or "that's the way the cookie crumbles". That last one is my favorite. I mean, what kind of cookie are we talking about? It's got to be some kind of shortbread or it wouldn't crumble unless it was stale.

I suppose that stale cookie is the most powerful ammunition against succumbing to the potency of the monkey-wrench. The stale cookie does crumble. But the world continues to turn. Children are born, cakes are baked, dreams are realized.

I look at the loathsome monkey-wrench in my hands, then down at the pile of cookie crumbs at my feet. I close my eyes and reach into the depths of my soul, calling upon the vitality that lives there. I ask that spirit to help me transform the monkey-wrench into something more manageable...like a stale cookie.

I lift the monkey-wrench high above my head and fling it to the ground with all my strength.

It shatters to bits, shards breaking off to skitter away. I sweep them into the pile of broken wrenches already littering my proverbial corner. Worry and anxiety roll off me having just been cheated. I dust off my hands and place them on my hips, looking skyward.

"Thanks for that, Great Spirit." I say with another sigh. "That was just you reminding me that everything has a purpose and any obstacle is surmountable...especially with faith and a sense of humor."

Right?