Predator

My squirrel friend has a shorter tail this evening. He, or maybe it's a she, I can't tell, was pillaging our compost bucket on our screened porch with a buddy this morning. I'm not sure why my husband thought having an open bucket of compost on our screened porch was a good idea. Last year we kept one there as a holding spot before bringing it all out to our compost pile. In the winter it's hard to be motivated to bring the compost to the pile. Cold, snow, ice. Lots of good excuses. That worked until a variety of squirrels and mice found the bucket after tearing holes in the screens. We put a lid on on. They ate through the lid. We resumed our daily pilgrimages to the pile.

So why was an open bucket there again? He says he thought he was getting away with it. But this morning there were two red squirrels feasting. Then in another inexplicable decision, my sometimes not-so-good-at-thinking-things-through husband let our cat, Pip, out onto the porch. He says he thought Pip would just chase them out. But what happened looked a lot more like a cage match between predator and prey.

Their hole-in-the-screen entrance to our porch is not a high-speed escape route. They were trapped. Panicked, one climbed the screens and cowered ten feet off the ground while the other dashed madly about. Pip is a hunter through and through. I've known he's an outdoor cat in his truest nature. He's no lie around and get fat indoor lap cat. And he demonstrated that killer instinct today.

The frenzied running of the red squirrel stopped when he wedged his head between a post and the wall of the house, desperately trying to squeeze through. Most of his body didn't fit. That's where Pip caught up with him. By this time I was urging my husband to go out and stop this execution.

Let me be clear, I understand the predator prey relationship. Cats kill and eat squirrels. But this was not a fair fight - the prey were effectively caged and a predator was introduced to that cage. If this battle had been waged in the open yard, in nature, I would not have interfered. I would have looked away.

My dear husband recognized the seriousness of my demand and went out and grabbed Pip. As he carried the adrenaline crazed cat back into the house a large pile of fur hung from Pip's mouth. Mr. Squirrel was alive, but with a much shorter tail.

Within minutes the squirrels were back in the compost bucket. Think about that. Any person I know surviving a close encounter with death would be sitting back panting, calling friends and families to describe the "I almost died!" experience, re-living the story again and again. The story would take on mythic, epic proportions in that person's life. But a squirrel? After the imminent danger had passed, the predator gone, the squirrel resumed foraging.

I think there is someplace between what humans do and what squirrels do that makes sense. Reflect on the experience, see what can be learned from it, and then move on. No need to keep oneself re-living the terror, defining life as before and after. Acknowledge it was a close call, take what you can from it, enjoy life even more. I'll let you know when I can actually accomplish this idea...

But the story doesn't end there. We still had two squirrels rummaging through our compost in our screened porch. In a sensible move, my husband grabbed a broom and shooed them out of the bucket, then moved the bucket off the porch. He propped open the door. Then, for another unknown-to-me reason, he decided that they needed to leave now. He proceeded to chase them about with the broom until they ran out the door. Wouldn't they have left on their own in a few minutes to find the bucket?

Wallowing

Today I spent some time wallowing in self-pity. I'm not proud of this, but I'm also trying not to beat myself up over it. It happens. I get over it.

When I step back far enough and get my life in perspective I see how incredibly blessed I am. I have good health, a loving husband, beautiful children, an amazing extended family, a fabulous house that provides far more than basic shelter. I live surrounded by abundance in so many forms. That I take for granted. I have opportunities that most of the world can't even imagine.

And today I chose to exercise the opportunity to focus on the things I don't have and don't like. Today I cried because of the ways my life is limited. I suppose, really, I cried because of the ways my thinking is limited. I narrowed my focus until all I could see were the parts that I've decided are a problem.

I love to play outdoors. I love to try new adventures. I love doing physical things in and with nature. I can't figure out how to include Pookie with her needs and preferences. Pookie is never going hiking, maybe a nature walk in her jogger, but not hiking. She would probably hate skiing and iceskating, but I can't even figure out how to do those things. Well, there are adaptive ski centers, but they are cost prohibitive and she's just not a play-in-the-snow kind of kid. Surfing is out for her. She might play in the waves, but now I need to find someone to do that while I'm off playing. See how easy it is for me to over-constrain myself and focus on the things I can't do?

What problems to have! Food, no problem. Shelter, safety, health, no problem. Play? Ooh... woe is me. And I do get to play, just not in exactly the ways I want.

Why do I, why do humans have this tendency to focus on what we don't have instead of what we do have? I suppose it's a survival trait that's obsolete in this culture of abundant everything. I suppose it explains the popularity of gratitude journals and lists - we need to practice appreciating everything we do have to balance our innate inclination to look for what is missing.

So, inspired by that idea, here are a bunch of things I'm grateful for (that I haven't already mentioned):

1. The acres and acres of woods that surround my house.

2. This room that I claim as my own for exercise, work, mediation, dance, conversation and quiet.

3. All of my friends who ceaselessly support and encourage me despite my own doubts.

4. My extensive collection of fleece socks.

5. My mediation cushions.

6. The camp up in New Hampshire.

7. Woodchuck Ledge.

8. The Swift River

9. Telephones, email, blogs & Skype that all keep me connected to the people in my life.

10. The sunrise every morning that proves to me all I have to do is go along for the ride. No effort required.

11. Skylights.

12. Books. So many, many books.

13. My comfy bed with flannel sheets and down quilt.

14. The red squirrel who kept me bemused today skittering around outside my window, climbing the screen and disappearing above it onto the light fixture.

Time

A week. It's been over a week since I've blogged. When I started this blog I intended to blog every day. Some days I had more than one great idea to write about. I made it through the holidays. I made it through my January doldrums. Then I paused to reconsider my priorities. I played. And now I see that blogging was left out.

I've thought about it most days, sort of wistfully, but not really in any way that caused me to create time for it either. I enjoy writing and storytelling and thought-exploring. Still, in the fine art of balancing my life I couldn't figure which side of the scale to put it on. So it stayed off to the side, neglected.

The past few days have been very eventful for me internally. I have recognized some very powerful patterns in my thoughts and behavior, connected seemingly disparate facets of my life, sat stunned, absorbing the implications. Awareness is a wonderful thing. Awareness facilitates change. But it's set me back on my heels, no, shoved me backwards onto my rump, left me staring, mouth agape at the vision of this new understanding.

A small piece of this insight concerned my habits around spending resources on myself. I don't. I have great difficulty buying things for myself, dedicating time to myself, anything for myself. Each time I claim some bit of our resources for myself, it is something of a triumph. I make time to exercise most mornings, but I need to justify it's value beyond what it does for me, and minimize it's impact on my family. I make time to blog, and again need to justify it's value and minimize it's impact. When I have bought things for myself, non-essentials, I have needed to justify them to myself. Better yet, I wait long enough that someone else buys them for me. But that's a different piece of this story.

So yesterday I spent some time exploring that. At the end I made a list of some things I really want. Things that I don't need in any way, but that I have wanted for some time. Things that make me happy just to think about having them. Some are big: I would love to go to some sunny warm climate, like Hawaii and learn to surf. I can't explain it. Some are smaller: I have ogled Zen clocks with a chime alarm for months and months, if not years.

Today I decided I would buy myself one. $120 seems like a lot for a clock, but this isn't about strict practicality. It's about valuing myself, valuing my happiness, recognizing that it's OK to spend money on something that, for whatever reason, means so much to me. Maybe it's symbolic.

Last spring, after an agonizing internal struggle, I bought myself a new camera. I had found my photography to be limited by the quality of the lens and technical capabilities of my point-and-shoot, pocket camera. I splurged. And what happened was not just that the technical quality of my photos improved, or even that my creativity was unleashed. In some way, valuing that piece of me opened my awareness to the direction of my soul's work, my vocation, I don't know what to call it. It opened me to possibility. That gesture, that splurge on myself, that valuing of myself was certainly a symbolic signal to some core part of me: It's safe to come out now.

I sat down to write tonight, for the first time in over a week, with the settled feeling that I would do something special for myself and order a Zen clock, and found an email from my husband. It was a link to a Widget for my iMac. A meditation timer. That chimes.

I still want my clock.


(Picture from Now & Zen.)

Play

The snow was supposed to start sometime mid-morning. It was supposed to be heaviest mid-afternoon. It was supposed to accumulate to 4-5" up there in the wilds of New Hampshire. We awoke on the first morning of our escape to 3" on the ground (well, on top of the two or more feet that were already on the ground). By the time we ate breakfast and got all our outdoor gear on two hours later (hey, you try to prepare two children and three adults for 10F and deep snow) the fresh snow was nearly 6" deep.

We set off with the vague goal of finding the sandpit Poppa remembered being someplace a ways off the road and down a bit. Maybe it would be exciting to slide down it. We wandered back into the woods following a trail laid out by fellow enthusiasts. Dee Dee and Little Dudely (and I) had fun pulling on the branches of heavily coated hemlocks setting off avalanches of powder onto ourselves and those following behind us. Progress was slow towards the gate that closes the road in winter and that marks, generally, the spot from which you dive into the woods to find the sandpit. But it was a magical day in the White Mountain National Forest with heavy snow, and heavier silence (when we bothered to stop giggling long enough to hear what wasn't there).

When we looped back to the road at the gate and finished climbing on the giant snow piles at the end of the plowed section on the road there was a disagreement over which way to head to find the sandpit. So Poppa went one way, Dad went the other. Dee Dee, Little Dudely and I plopped ourselves down in powdery thrones and caught snowflakes on our tongues.

Poppa called out from a distance, muffled by the snow. Then he appeared and indicated for us to follow his tracks back to the mythical sandpit. But first we howled our best coyote cries (as promised) to let dad know we were heading off into the woods.

We made our way back along the fresh trail, tromped nearly knee deep in the new and previous powder, grateful for our snowshoes. We ducked under a fallen tree, crossed a frozen brook hidden under the snow, and came around a final turn to the sandpit. Sort of a half-bowl shape, maybe 35 feet high, with nearly vertical sides at the top. Very impressive.

Dee Dee started up first. I followed. Little Dudely joined the climb just before Dad and Poppa arrived. Kick, kick, kick. I had to try to bury the toes of my snowshoes in the deep powder on the slope to get traction. Dee Dee needed me to brace one foot for her so she could make progress. Dad did the same for Little Dudely.

We stood at the top intimidated by the steep drop. One by one we courageously slid down on our bottoms, carving out a sliding run, piling up mounds of powder around us. The kids were the lucky ones wearing overall snowpants or snowsuits. For the adults snow pushed up under jackets and into our layers of sweaters...

By the time we made our way back to our camp we were exhausted by the snowshoeing and climbing and sliding, and by the cold. Another 4" of snow had fallen in the two hours we had been out. By late in the afternoon, when the snow finally let up, nearly 18" of powder had fallen. We definitely needed to shovel the flat roof of the addition, and probably the main roof as well.

The next morning we went out to breakfast and found some sleds. We headed back to the sandpit with our sleds... and a camera. Each ride blew huge waves of powder into our faces, making us wish we had goggles and neck warmers as the cold, cold snow hurt as it melted on our faces. Our crazy rides got faster, but always ended with a floomp! into the deep pile at the bottom. There simply was no graceful way out. So we laughed instead.

As we trudged out Little Dudely rode in one sled as it filled with snow, burying him. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining through the tree, snow unpredictably cascading off the trees. But it was also our day to head home. I managed to it "Play" on my life's remote while I was there. I hope it gets stuck.

Pause Button

I'm working on a pause button for my life. Sometimes I just want a way to stop everything while I catch my breath, catch up to the action and figure out what's going on in the plot of my life. I think this would be a very handy little device. I imagine I'm not the only one who wants one.

Maybe it'll be a remote with rewind for the times you want to go back and change what happened, or just review it when there's a dispute over who said what. And fast forward for when you want to skip over the scary or sad stuff and get to the good part when it all turns out well in the end. Ooh, and slow-motion so you can savor the best parts. I think some captioning would be useful too for those times miscommunications pile up until you feel like the person you're talking with is speaking a different language.

But as much as I sometimes wish for all those features I think life is much more interesting without them. When I look back at all I've learned from those scary and sad times, from the miscommunications, from rushing through the good times, I wouldn't want to change them.

However I do need to get back to my meditation practice as that is as close as I'll ever get to a pause button for my life.

Out of Balance

My life is officially out of balance. Here's a list of some of the things I like to do, but have been neglecting: I have not been exercising, either cardio or weights. I have not been practicing yoga, qi gong or meditation. I have not been blogging regularly. I have not been reading. I have not been eating well (low on the fruits and veggies intake, a few too many treats). I have not been making time to focus on the important relationships in my life.

I think it's that last one that has finally gotten my attention. One by one the other things on the list will get my attention too, as their neglect and the subsequent lack of personal nurturing take their toll. But as much as I've been having fun with and been absorbed by my singular focus, I'm feeling disconnected from my loved ones. It's time to become conscious of my priorities again.

It's easy to get swept up in tasks that feel urgent. It's easy to get swept up in tasks that are fun. It's easy to lose sight of the truly important stuff when your focus gets narrowed. And I've done all of those things to get to this state of unbalance.

Funny thing is, I don't mind that I've gotten here. I saw it coming. I knew what was happening. I've been having fun. I don't mean to suggest that I wanted to neglect important relationships or my general well-being, but I was having fun focusing on my own play. I've been getting my new business as a life coach up and running. I've been making contacts, creating my website and business cards, getting my bank account and invoicing set up, and coaching. It feels so good!

But now I'll step back and re-balance because I'm starting to see the negative effects of all my play. However, play will be an important component of my new balance puzzle - a component I largely neglected for years before this indulgence...

Muddle

"And when beetles battle beetles in a puddle paddle battle and the beetle battle puddle is a puddle in a bottle... They call this a tweedle beetle bottle puddle paddle battle muddle..." - Dr. Seuss

I've got tweedle beetles battling in the puddle in the bottle which is my head. Or, in other words, my thoughts are in a muddle tonight. Lots of them. Mucking about. When I chase them, they just tweedle and laugh, running off. So I'm trying to ignore them, hoping that they'll get tired overnight and settle down.

It's sort of the way I feel sometimes when my kids are wound up in the evening. You know, that "energy vampire" time of day? They suck my energy from me and I end up an exhausted puddle on the floor while they bounce off the walls. And then I just bide my time until they get tired and settle down.

Tonight my kids are settled down and asleep, but my thoughts! Well, I guess I'll just lie down in an exhausted puddle and enjoy the show...