Take Your Pick

We’ve never had a shortage of cats.  Our place isn’t quite the Caboodle Ranch, but we’ve fed our share of felines through the years…

Thanks to Emmy, who shows up on our steps one fine day.  Tell me this:  who can resist such a darling wee one, fuzzy and gray with green eyes wide as saucers staring back at you? 

Her first litter of kittens is born in my daughter Abi’s lap while she’s watching cartoons on a Saturday morning.  Others make their debut in the upstairs bathtub in the dead of winter. 

When people ask why we don’t get her “fixed,” I tell them Emmy is Catholic – as are all our cats.  And they don’t say another word.   She was born to be fruitful and multiply.         

We’ve always been lucky enough to find good homes for each and every litter (except for the ones we’ve kept).   Don’t ask how many we’ve kept.  I’ve lost count. 

Trick or Treat!

On a Halloween night my daughter and I go out to a carnival.  We dress up as dancers; Hannah is a princess ballerina and I’m a sassy flapper. 

Dad stays home to mind the treat-or-treaters and hand out candy.  He sits on the dark front porch by the glowing jack-o-lantern, kittens purring at his feet.  Then a bright idea strikes him. 

He remembers a birthday party from whence his daughter came home, bearing a strange kitten.  Her friend Erin had distributed these little critters for party favors.   Hey, not a bad idea after all…

Tonight he will delight a few trick-or-treaters with a prize kitten and a bag of Tender Vittles dropped in their pumpkin totes: a little something to get them started. 

When we come home from the carnival and ask where the kittens might be, he looks just like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary. 

Now it’s your turn to share a Halloween memory of your own.   What did you wear?   Who were you with?   Where did you go?   I look forward to seeing you in costume.  

ARE YOU ONE OF THEM?

They’ve always known they were different.  Rare birds.

They want to make the world a better place and the people in it happier.

Polite folks just say they “march to the beat of a different drummer.”  Others call them “peculiar” because, for whatever reason, they aren’t apt to play the reindeer games. 

What do they have in common?  They are all creative and love, most of all, coloring outside the lines.  And while everyone else’s reindeer looks “normal,” theirs has to have a glowing red nose. 

Do you know about this famous doctor named Patch Adams from West Virginia?  

He wears a shiny red nose to make sick children snicker.  Because laughter is sometimes the best medicine of all.  Patch doesn’t just treat disease like most doctors.  He treats people.  

via

What else do these rare birds have in common besides coloring outside the lines?  They twirl with abandon and jump in puddles just for fun.  And sing high-pitched songs to backyard cats regardless of what the neighbors think. 

Sometimes they create things that make the world say, “You’re just weird.”  But Picasso and Stravinsky didn’t care; they liked their art, regardless. 

Emily Dickinson secreted over 1700 poems in trunks and pouches, and wore only white dresses after her father died.  The “Belle of Amherst” was one of a kind.  No carbon copies to be found.    

Besides creativity, another common trait in eccentrics is collecting (and sometimes hoarding). The strangest case I know is the man who was evicted from his house for adopting too many strays.  And so he bought land and built a village for his homeless cats, Caboodle Ranch…

Then there are those who wear whatever strikes their fancy.  They’ve invented a style of their own, and have no desire to “fit in” fashion wise.   

You might be an eccentric if you have any of these traits:

A creative nature…

Childlike spontaneity…

A spiritual penchant…

Idealism (a desire to make the world a better place and the people in it happier)…

An obsession with one or more hobbies…

A propensity to think outside the box…

If you are “one of them,” please elaborate in the comments.

Season of Reflection

“Listen” said the White Spirit.  “Once you were a child.  Once you knew what inquiry was for.  There was a time when you asked questions because you wanted answers, and were glad when you found them.  Become that child again; even now.”

~ C.S. Lewis (The Great Divorce)

 “No one has ever, or will ever, come into this world with the exact same mission as yours.   The light you are meant to shine into the world is yours alone, as individual as your fingerprint, as personal as your voiceprint.” 

~ Sara Yoheved Rigler

We don't ask "What is the meaning of life?" but "What is the meaning of my life?"

 ~   Gregg Levoy (Callings)

Last week, in contemplating the meaning of Rosh Hashanah, I made a few discoveries.  Far more than just a New Year - with resolutions (not often kept) - it’s a time of deeper reflection and evaluation…and a time to identify our life’s mission. 

Rabbi Nivin suggests that we ask ourselves (and write down): What were the five or ten most pleasurable moments of my life?   Be more specific than “Seeing Niagara Falls.”  No universal, transcendent moments such as enjoying nature or music.  Think callings.    

Some time ago at a spiritual retreat, speaker Keith Miller asked us the question, “What do you want to do for the rest of your life?”   We were then told to spend the afternoon writing down all the things we loved doing enough to make them our life’s purpose. 

Of course I naturally named “writing” - among other things.  But it’s amazing how all of my dreams – unspoken until that retreat – have been achieved.  From that pivotal moment, I can vouch for the need to list our desires of the heart, to name them one by one…  

Because, most likely, they were God-given from the get-go.  

They just need to be awakened in order to bear fruit. 

Alexander Seinfeld asks 20 questions designed to move us forward toward our life’s purpose.   He suggests that we spend 5 meditative minutes on each question.    

Meanwhile… I’ll ask you that seemingly simple question that Keith Miller asked at the retreat:

“What do you want to do for the rest of your life?”

image via

First the Forest Then the Trees

The Girl Who loved Tom Gordon, a modern fairy tale by Stephen King, is also a good parable for writers.  It tells the story of nine-year-old Trisha McFarland straying from a hiking path and getting lost in the woods. 

She is tormented by insects, tested by the elements, trailed by a mysterious beast, and learns that “the world has teeth.”   An archetypal survival tale if ever there was one.          

So what does being lost in the woods have to do with writing?  Everything.  The protagonist finds herself in the vast unknown, “a place where the rules she was used to no longer applied.”    There was no outline for plotting a course out of the woods.  No instruction manual on survival.

In writing, do you always come full circle and end up where you started?   Or do you get lost among the trees in the forest, chasing one rabbit trail after another…

Until you lose sight of where you are, as I did when writing a novel once – which I finally managed to finish after five years of hunting jackrabbits.       

   

Of course writing the novel was never about fame or fortune – thank God - but about proving to myself that it could be done – and done well.  It was about surviving the wilderness without a compass.  About finding my way through the woods and coming out on the other side alive.   

     

Then comes the time for pitching to an agent and/or publisher.  I sent the first fifty pages to the former, the entire 350 page manuscript to the latter.  Long story short: rejection from both.  But it never deterred me from continuing to navigate my way through forests dark and deep.              

The Right/Left Brain Fusion

I’ve recently been studying right/left brain characteristics.  Right brainers see the forest first, then the trees.  The big picture, then the details.  They are masters at creating, but losers at innovation.

They finish books, then hide them in manuscript boxes in closets and move on to the next artistic project without having sold their finished products…   

Because when it comes to taking care of business and coming up with a selling strategy, their left brain seems to be in a coma.   What to do, what to do?   Remain a starving artist forever?    

Some folks are apparently adept at exiting the forest alive and getting their survival story out there.   Those most likely to find success with their creative ventures are switch hitters… 

You might be a switch hitter if you know how to shift gears from the right-brain creation mode to a left-brain innovation focus when you reach that juncture… Like a gifted baseball player who can hit the ball with his right or left hand, depending on the pitcher’s angle.             

        

Are you left brain dominant or right brain dominant?

Or have you succeeded in becoming a switch hitter?

If you aren’t sure, and would like to take the quiz before answering, go ahead, I’ll wait.

Image via 

Train Ride

The things which the child loves remain

In the domain of the heart until old age.

The most beautiful thing in life is that our souls linger

Over the places where we once enjoyed ourselves.

~ Kahlil Gibran

What childhood place of joy still remains in the domain of your heart?

I will never outgrow the miniature train at the park, and I still enjoy my choo-choo rides as much today as I did way back when.  Come travel with me around the track.            

 

Train Ride

Weekends, the conductor stands at the gate

in his striped cap, cigarette perched between

his lips, collecting fare from kids and a few

adults along for the ride.  When I hand him

my buck fifty, he knows I’m in for the long haul.

Ten rounds of breeze in my face, the same

gray canal reflecting trees and sky,

and in the midst of all this,

pasture-green grass.

A momentary tunnel we pass before

seeing the light, the dark so fleeting we

hardly notice it’s there except for the screams,

fierce but brief.  The whistle blows as

we pass the gate yet again

where parents wait, smiling

and waving back at their children.

Forgetting to be an adult, I wave

as well, relish the thrill of being in motion

while they stand still.

Like a homecoming queen, I wave with my

elbow to passing cars on Raleigh Road.

Who knows where the conductor will be

tomorrow when the train is closed.  If he’s

like me he’ll go back to his Monday routine,

traveling in circles with the globe.

What youthful fun do you still enjoy with playful abandon?

“Train Ride” was first published in the literary anthology, Traveling Time.

Get a Life

  Van Gogh’s Wind Beaten Tree

                                                                 

 Last week the East Coast was hit hard by an earthquake and a hurricane.  Both.   In case anyone missed it on the news.  In case anyone had his head buried in the sand.  In case anyone happened to be sleeping through this apocalyptic reality show. 

On Tuesday, while visiting a friend in the hospital, we witness a bizarre sight.  Nancy’s bed suddenly starts shaking, floor trembles, IV stand rattles, med bags swing back and forth... just like a scene from the Exorcist.  Getting kind of spooky in here, I’m thinking.   

Then, no sooner have we caught our collective breath from the quake shock than we find water, milk, bread, and batteries disappearing from grocery shelves…  Irene’s a ‘coming.  For sure.   

By Friday, black clouds await their moment of fury.  Wait to unleash buckets of water upon the earth and drown its inhabitants.  Scenes like this make me want to kindly preach…

 “Be prepared for whatever comes our way.”  I’ve seen The Road and The Book of Eli.  I know the world isn’t always sunshine and lollipops.  Go ahead.  Plug your ears with your index fingers and yell, “Lalalalala!”    

      

On Saturday when the power abruptly shuts down, when fan blades stop mid-cycle, when the house grows dark as midnight, my daughter is at a loss.  “What am I supposed to do now?”

“We have books in the house you know.” 

“But it’s too dark to read.  You want me to go blind?”  

Winds of wrath slam hard against glass.  Trees grow wild, writhing, twisting, bending groundward.   Where do birds hide in this chaos?  Waters rise and roil like a boiling cauldron. 

Time for a heart to heart.  “I already know what you’re about to tell me,” she says.  “I need an inner life.  Because then I won’t get bored.”

“Exactly.  How do you think they survived for hundreds of years?  They had an inner life.  They knew how to occupy themselves without modern-day movie pyrotechnics.

“Just go back to bed and dream.  Because that might be all the entertainment you’ll get for awhile.  You never know, a masterpiece could be lurking somewhere in your unconscious mind.  Did you know that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was based on a dream she had?” 

Ever had a dream that could become a classic…if you wrote it down? 

What’s one vivid dream you remember?  

Two for Twenty

No telling who the black man with the hole in his throat really is.  My husband only knows that when he can’t start his car today after buying gas, the stranger approaches him and offers a helping hand. 

He lifts the hood and takes a look, fiddles around and voila!  The jeep is resurrected.  My husband opens his wallet and offers a $20 bill to the man – the last of the cash he has on hand after purchasing a tank of gas. 

“Much obliged,” the stranger says. “I’ve only got half of my rent together for this month, and this will help me pay the rest.”   

Win – Win.

My daughter Abi hits Chili’s Bar & Grill for an early dinner with some girlfriends.  They order the 2 for $20 meal - appetizer and two entrees included - to split among them.       

They see only two people working the floor: a waitress, and what appears to be a manager moseying about, refilling drinks, and checking on customers.  He frequently ambles by the girls’ table with a pitcher of tea to be sure their glasses stay filled.

During their meal, Abi receives a disturbing phone call, one which brings tears to her eyes.  Since she’s already tired from lack of sleep the previous night, the call intensifies matters and produces outright weeping. 

 Within minutes their waitress returns, kneels by the table, and points to the young manager.  “Michael over there saw you crying and told me to give you this.”  She hands Abi a $20 bill. 

“He says he can’t bear to see a pretty girl cry, and the meal is on him.  All you need to pay for are your teas.”  Then the waitress gives her extra napkins to dry her eyes, which leads to even more crying – this time tears of joy and gratitude over the kindness of strangers.  

When have you witnessed the kindness of strangers? 

Or been that kind stranger yourself?