There's one particular evening that
sticks out in my mind, that will always be associated with this phrase. It was during the glory years of
160th, a sort of prenatal compound. If memory serves, it was during the time that
dem_bones,
robnotrob and I were all living there, although bones had stepped out for the evening. He had been replaced, in a fashion by
thefez.
We had ingested of ourselves that evening, and had created a helluva fire in the back ten acres, underneath the tree that stood out alone in the middle of the field. The barn was about one hundred yards away. This is the same barn that also hosted the infamous lawnjart incident,so the area was...replete with memories.
The fire itself was probably one of the hottest that we'd made there - the largest was still the Great 1998 New Year's Fire. However, the fire was burning strong for probably the eight hours that we sat out there, and despite being hosed down three or four times that evening (Who can remember?), had to be hosed down two more times the following day.
I'm not sure that I remember much of the exact conversations. What I do remember was the perfect late summer night, the sky was mostly clear, with clouds moving rapidly across the sky, and a heavy moon sitting in the sky, like a hen on the egg of the world
We had terrible old chairs. dem_bones and I had acquired these chairs from our now former boss, and the print on the chairs looked like it had been rejected from the Brady Bunch set. That said, they were damn comfortable chairs to sit in for the hours we spent there.
The phrase "bend like the reed" was first said by thefez when two foreign elementals entered our mental landscape. plakke and one of the mutants peripherials ann had come over looking to partake of some gaseous substance that the house currently housed at the time.
What followed was probably one of the more uncomfortable settings between friends that I've been in. The three of us sat mute while the other two talked. I spent my time thinking that I must bend like the reed. Sage advice from thefez. They eventually went inside, and we went back to our prior conversation.
They eventually returned, and plakke spent a lot of time talking about Pink Floyd, as I recall. They left again, after we refused to say anything beyond the expected hellos.
All in all, a night well spent. That's the night that taught me one of life's most important lessons: Sometimes, there are times/people/events/places/ideas/things that cannot be dealt with hand on. Sometimes situations require tact, sometimes they require action, and sometimes...sometimes they require simply enduring and bending like the reed.