I walked south down the beach in a heavy fog. Or was it north? The ocean was there but not there.<\/p>\n
Something in the sand caught my eye. I picked up it up: a tiny toy cowboy boot in the sand. It wasn’t exactly Neil Young’s \u201cCowgirl in the Sand\u201d but I’d take it. Anything cowboy, like Thin Lizzy’s \u201cThe Cowboy Song\u201d or \u201cCome back Shane\u201d or disseminating my collection of cowboy shirts to homeless men on the North Oregon Coast. It always makes me smile when I see a Warrenton man wearing one.<\/p>\n
I raised the brown boot to the sky, then brought it closer for inspection. I stood it on a rock and a driftwood round and a sand dollar. It was a good cowboy boot for kicking someone’s existential ass and I mimicked the boot kicking someone’s ass.<\/p>\n
Wait! <\/i>I thought. Why not my ass? I needed a good kick in the existential ass and I had found the perfect cowboy boot to do so. A lone galosh would never work for the metaphor. Neither would someone telling me to bend over and then kicking me. I needed the kick from within.<\/p>\n
There I was, in the fog, wearing a damn cowboy shirt and the cowboy boot began kicking me in the ass. I even told it to: Okay, boot, get to work!<\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me out of depression.<\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me out of the past; kick me into the future (it’s not the same thing).<\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me into 12-hour writing days.<\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me into facing the faces and walking the walk.<\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me out of the tiny darkened corners of marginalization.<\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me into new vistas.<\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me through the keyhole of a keyhole limpet. <\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me into the path of a stray dog. <\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me into realms of new writing and publishing. <\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me into the place of becoming a kick ass ass kicker in life.<\/i><\/p>\n
Kick me toward a real ass kicker who wants to help me kick ass in life. <\/i><\/p>\n
I sat down on a log. Getting repeated kicks in the ass is exhausting. It also hurts. It also feels pretty good.<\/p>\n
The cowboy boot found a home in the pocket of my corduroy duster. I carried it home and placed it on the shelf near the toy beaver. I look at the boot every now and then.<\/p>\n
(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I walked south down the beach in a heavy fog. Or was it north? The ocean was there but not there. Something in the sand caught my eye. I picked up it up: a tiny toy cowboy boot in the sand. It wasn’t exactly Neil Young’s \u201cCowgirl in the Sand\u201d but I’d take it. Anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32],"tags":[426,36,425,427,6,9,52,48,13],"class_list":["post-3330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-beaches","tag-ass-kicking","tag-beaches","tag-cowboy-boot","tag-kick-in-the-ass","tag-matt-love","tag-nestucca-spit-press","tag-oregon","tag-oregon-beaches","tag-oregon-coast","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3332,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3330\/revisions\/3332"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}