Gourdhead.
That's what my Dad would call anyone who did something stupid. Gourdhead.
We grew gourds in our garden. Once they were mature we would cut them off the vines and hang them up to dry. After several months they would be completely dry. You could shake them and hear the seeds rattling around inside like a maraca.
Gourdhead. Sometimes I feel like a gourdhead. My brains rattling around inside my head. Like when I do the same thing over and over but expect a different outcome each time. Or when I allow myself to be treated poorly by someone under the guise of friendship or family. Gourdhead.
Once the gourds were dry my father would then take a dime and a pencil and place the dime in the center of the widest part of the gourd and draw around it with the pencil. He would then take his pocketknife and cut the hole out. He would shake the seeds out into a brown paper sack and then place the sack in the seed cabinet in the garage to be planted next year. The gourd would be hung with twine on a tree limb near one of our kitchen windows and wrens would come and build their nests in them. With the hole being so small no other birds could nest in them. The same wrens would come year after year to build their nests and raise their young in the gourds.
When I do something good or healthy for myself I no longer feel like a gourdhead. Like when I go to church, or spend time in prayer, read an uplifting book, eat a healthy meal, or try a new and different approach to an issue or problem. Then I feel not like a gourdhead but more like one of those tiny young wrens peeking out the small hole in that gourd, ready to take their first flying leap into the world to freely soar as the universe intended it. And then one by one the young wrens strike out...doing something new...something bold and daring...taking that giant leap of faith, spreading their wings and flying up and away into the bright blue sky.
