Mortar & Expounded Cliche
Beating my head against a wall.
It is good to work with your hands, to mix the concrete, manage the trowel, stack the bricks. Churchill took to bricklaying to calm his nerves, when politics had ended. He also wrote novels, and painted, and discussed the “Black Dog,” his nickname for depression, with his confidants.
When it’s done it stands as tall as I do, red rectangles piled clean, trim lines, stacked neatly. This is a powerful structure. It’s only a few feet wide, 8 inches thick.
For my purposes, it’s perfect. I stand a foot away from it, and then with careful force smash my head straight forward. Five, six times.
It doesn’t move, but my head, of course, feels better.