Day of Distinction – If I’m Not Holding On, Am I Letting Go?

I have a hard time letting go. The joke among my friends and ex’s is if you want to end our friendship you’d better get accepted into the witness protection program ‘cause I don’t give up on those who are important to me. This is a comfort to those friends whose busy lives make it difficult to stay in touch, but a bane to the occasional escapee. (Yes, it’s true; I once drove to San Antonio and back in 36 hours trying to find out the truth from a misplaced friend)

Sometimes this unwillingness to let go has resulted in regaining a relationship that once ended badly, which is miraculous. Sometimes this means prolonged suffering as I refuse to believe something that once was so good could have ended so badly and I go over and over what i coulda woulda shoulda done. (To paraphrase Katherine Hepburn in A Lion In Winter, “How, from where we started did we get here?”)

I’m better at stuff. I teach workshops on being organized so I’m pretty good at deciding whether something is eminently beautiful, useful or too sentimental to part with. I do have hard time letting go of things that once meant something important, even though that person has made a run for it. (Ok so I still have the crumbled duct tape from the first time I saw husband #1’s band play but it’s tiny and somewhere in a box…) This week I’m packing up a couple of things that were gifts from people whose departure and subsequent absence still hurts. At first I kept the items on display because they are beautiful, and I thought being reminded of the good times was a good thing, until they began sapping my energy and I felt surrounded by ghosts of a not so benevolent kind.

But back to today’s distinction,  letting go; it sounds so final, so active. As if I’m throwing away everything and the memories no longer have meaning or value. Or as in the case of job hunting, being open to finding a significant other, or some thing else where attachment isn’t the strongest spiritual path, letting go feels like I’m saying “WHAT – ever!” as if I have no interest in the outcome. This of course isn’t true, and I think the universe likes some clarity; in fact I think manifesting what we want or need demands a little clarity, a little input.

So I’ve reframed the whole idea into not holding on. To me this is a gentler, kinder way to tell the universe “I’m open to what you have in mind but I want you to know I’ve given this a more than passing thought and it’s kinda important to me.”

Letting go feels as if I’m throwing something away whereas not holding on feels like I’m just opening my hand, which allows whatever needs to leave, the space in which to exit while at the same time I’m open and ready to receive whatever is coming my way.

onward and upward,

 

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit, 2012.

 

I’m Just Wild About Harry

“One runs the risk of weeping a little if one lets himself be tamed” so says the Little Prince in my favorite book and it’s an issue I struggle with constantly. This morning Harry is missing and those words echo in my ears every time I look out the window.

Harry is one of my feral cats, and I’m just wild about Harry.

After my old cat Ian died and there was no one to guard the premises, a mother/daughter pair of cats moved in under the house. It was nice to have cats in the yard again so I let them stay.

Annie and Agnes (Ado Annie for the girl who just can’t say no in the musical Oklahoma and Agnes the secretary from Mame who takes a chance on life and ends up with more than she bargained for.) proved to be in the family way, not a good thing in a neighborhood with too many unwanted feral cats.

Then my neighbor came to the rescue with information about our town’s free spay neuter program for ferals. So we borrowed a trap and began an odyssey that would result in 15 spayed or neutered strays.

Of those fifteen, one decided she wanted to be a house cat and joined the family; eight live in my garden, one or two come by for breakfast, dinner and high tea. Yeah, I’m a crazy cat lady!

When word got out and the line for dinner reservations got too long, I began naming the cats by the alphabet, there was a little mix-up over black cats and so there are three B’s, Blackie, B-2 and Bagheera, luckily when we got to Phineas (who remains uncaptured) the parade slowed down.

So at any given time there’s a cat or two (or three or four) in view. Because most of the cats are young, barely a year old, they love to play and watching them provides great entertainment for the house gang and me.

Four of the ferals are pettable, 2 have become snugglers, and one has made several requests to join the house gang, that’s Harry. Did I mention I’m just wild about Harry?

Harry was tamed by playing chase the string, coming ever closer until the day he brushed against my leg; I scratched between his shoulder blades and the rest is history. He was tamed and so was I.

Harry rarely leaves the yard; he seems to always be at the door or window, every ready for play or a lap sit. This morning Harry was missing and I am reminded again that there are no guarantees in life or love.

Every time I put a pet “to sleep”, every time a friend dies or a lover decides we’re through, I wonder why I allow myself to care, to be tamed. For taming as the Little Prince explains, is about the time we waste for those we love, it is that investment of time, self and ritual that makes one little boy, one rose, one fox different from the rest.

It’s also what makes losing them so stinking painful!

Where once we could count on that smiling face, the chirp meant just for us, suddenly they’re gone and our broken hearts swear “never again.”

Since the day they arrived, the ferals have been a constant lesson in not holding on. Shortly after Annie and Agnes were released from recovery at my neighbor’s, Agnes disappeared. Annie was heart broken. All through their convalescence Annie and Agnes had slept wrapped around each other, now little Annie was alone in the world. I found Agnes a few days later in the field behind my house, it was not a pretty sight and a friend and I buried her down near the pond. My neighbor was more hurt than I, for it was she who had tended and bonded with Agnes. Annie, survived went on to become the matriarch, she made a new friend in Clyde and now rules the rest of the clan with an iron paw.

       Annie’s buddy Clyde

Annie keeps everyone in line!

Some of the cats became regulars; some occasional visitors, a few disappeared. Janet, Isabella’s shyer sister hasn’t are been seen in months, Kyle, Luke, Nathan, Ollie are gone. I wonder now and then what became of them, hoping they’ve found safe haven elsewhere. They were nice cats I guess, but certainly not tame, not like Harry.

A few months ago, frustrated by the vastness of social networking, I made a commitment to take the time to connect in meaningful ways with the people who have tamed me. Sometimes that’s by phone, sometimes that’s by text and sometimes that’s with real letters. For the most part the response has been positive; my friends have made the effort to meet me at least part way, making time in their busy lives to connect in ways that work for them, it’s the time we waste that makes someone special.

The disappearance of Harry makes me glad I took the time yesterday to play, however briefly and even more glad that I wrote my friend Gael a letter this morning, that tomorrow I go up to Ojo Caliente Hot Springs with Maureen who lives out of town and so I don’t see as often as I like. It’s why I show up on my weekly writers group call and why this Friday I am both excited and afraid to welcome the return to dinner at my house of a friend I’d thought that I’d never see again after he walked out almost 2 years ago.

I hope Harry will show up, because he is my cat and he is unique in all the world, and though I run the risk of crying for letting myself be tamed it’s still a risk I believe is worth taking.

onward and upward,

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit,2012.

 

 

Related articles

• Animal Welfare Groups Target Feral Cats For Sterilization (huffingtonpost.com)
• Push to get feral cats sterilized (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Group training volunteers to catch, fix and release feral cats to keep numbers in check (heraldnet.com)

Have Faith? Try Trust

The act of faith is an idea we humans created to appease our need for logic, thought and hope. A human contrivance that can be less effective than our more base instinct of trust, faith is about someday, trust happens in the moment.

These thoughts occurred while watching my old dog, Smudge. Smudge is an Australian Shepard; he’s a rescue dog whose stubborn refusal to listen nearly caused serious injury to my best friend in a little incident involving a big horse. So Smudge left a lush 60-acre farm in New Jersey to come to New Mexico and be a pet. Advancing deafness means he can no longer roam off leash and what were once busy days guarding chickens and herding sheep are now filled with waiting for the next walk. (I humbly note that he greets me with joy whenever I make time for him with no bestowing of guilt for not doing it sooner. That perhaps is an example of faith.)

Now that I’m unemployed Smudge and I have been walking several miles several times a week, until the evening when his back legs suddenly stopped working.

My first thought was oh no, the end is near, but Smudge hadn’t shown any sign of weakness before, didn’t seem to be in pain or even upset; he just kept falling down.

The next day Smudge still wasn’t perturbed though his legs continued to be unreliable. In fact when I attempted to help him down the back yard stairs, worried about the ice at the bottom; he shrugged me off. After waiting patiently until I went back in the house, he made his unsteady but unencumbered way down the stairs. I heard him scramble and fall on the ice at the bottom, but within seconds he was walking into view. Jauntily he strolled up to the fence, lifted his leg and fell down, and then he got up, switched legs and took a leak.

As the days passed I watched him practice trust. He’d trust one leg, when it didn’t work he’d trust the other. When his legs got tired as he drank water, he lay down and continued drinking. A few days later when asked, he said yes to a walk. Smudge went just so far then he stopped, tested his legs for a moment and turned and trotted surely back home. (I had to jog to keep up). He never lost his enthusiasm for life; in fact he seemed only puzzled at first when his legs refused to do what they had always done. I never saw him whine or cry.

I found this an inspiring example of self trust in action. He would try the old way, when that didn’t work he’d try another until he was able to achieve his goal. No seeming attachment to the original plan, he changed how he was doing things and things got done.  (A choice about as present and sane as one can get, no repeating the same action hoping for a different result, though now that I think about it, that rule is suspended when it comes to begging.)

What do I do when that which I expect turns out less than I hope?  I moan, gnash, whine, grieve, anger, complain, pray, try to have faith – oh the list is endless until eventually I reach cope. From cope I move to speculation, then openness, finally I accept and allow myself to try something else.

I’m not saying faith won’t or doesn’t get me where I need to be, eventually, but what if I just trusted right off the bat? What if like Smudge when one leg doesn’t work I try the other and if that doesn’t work I lie down or lean against a wall, not to ponder and pray for guidance but to achieve my goal of getting a drink of water now and worry about what to do next when next comes?

Is trust an instinct that we’ve bypassed for more intellectual pursuits? Faith resides in the heart and we open the door to it with our thoughts. Trust often happens without thinking – our beating heart, sunrise, that gut feeling. I’m not saying that faith doesn’t have its place; it’s been my light not just at the end of the tunnel but the one that has kept me company in my darkest moments, faith requires turning toward, I’m not sure trust requires anything but accepting.

So now it’s been a week, Smudge is doing great, once in a blue moon he still falls down. He’s also old and as one gentleman of a certain age said, “Hell, I fall down every now and then too.”

In the spirit of “and” verses “or” I would like to keep the faith and trust a little more. Trust; so that when I take a step only to fall on my face, I try another way without agonizing or blaming, I just trust I’ll figure it out.

onward and upward

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit,2012.