Running with the bulls

Lets say you wanted to run with the bulls – you spend sometime getting ready – rolling the idea around in your head. Thinking about it – prepping for the adventure – as the day and moment approaches anticipation builds. Part of you thinks “I can still back out now” – you press on plowing thru and smiling even more because you going to do this. You do the hardest part so far - you show up in the street – ready to run, you think you hear the bulls stamping and snorting behind the gate – your muscles tense – your breath quickens – your jaw sets.

You are doing this – you are going to run with the bulls!

This is so crazy! People DIE! horrible deaths – gored and broken – why Why WHY! You can still duck into that door, you can still call this off –

NO! We’re doing this!! Stay the course!! Stay the course!!! You in this now – no going back!

Cracking your knuckles – you prepare for the gate to open – you are wound like a steel trap, nervous, excited, worried, your stomach is churning, your nostrils flare, and your eyes narrow. The gate slides back – “Wait for it … ” you whisper to no one in particular, steady now, not until you see the whites of their eyes. And as the gate slides back, as you wait for the rumble of hooves, for the sights and sounds to fill you with a wonderful terror, in this moment as you wait – you notice just how still and quite it is. Your standing in an empty deserted street and you realize that you’ve arrived an hour early!!!

Feeling silly, relieved, and mildly annoyed (with yourself - not the bulls – they had no idea that you would be early) you head back to the office – planning to put lunch off by an hour. The next hour is spent pulling little pins out of the wall – mindless labor which provides the time so desperately needed for your mind to readjust to the change in plans. You had managed to build up the head of steam you needed to run with the bulls, you were all set, your body was wet with honest sweat at the very idea, and when you need it, when your strength did not fail you, you found it was all for naught.

Oh well . . . what man has done, man can do. And the bulls are only a half an hour away now. . .

The minutes tick by, the pins come up off the map, and slowly the accidents that have accumulated over the past year are transformed from pinheads to pencil marks. The hour of the bulls is upon you . . . this time you find it a weird mix of harder and easier to walk out and meet them. You stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood, and exchange fair nature for. . . well maybe you keep your fair nature – you don’t want to overdo this, and get gored by and angry bull. You leave the accident map and go out into the hallway to sign-out for lunch, to sign out and run with the bulls. And as you uncap the marker, as you raise it to the white board, as you start forming dull black letters on the shiny white surface. Your elbow is caught and you are drug - kicking and screaming into an hour-long meeting, where solid waste digesters, street repairs and storm water management will be disused in extensive detail.

After what seems like hours you emerge – “white and shaken – like a dry martini” the bulls have run today – they have run without you.

Lesson learned?

Tomorrow call ahead and schedule a running.