Steady As She Goes

I couldn’t help but feel happy. The sun was shining. A cool breeze blew. Today was nothing short of a perfect spring day for those of us in New Jersey. After a long week of rain and clouds, my spirits were lifted.

About a week ago, my son, husband and I were in a car accident. Fortunately, aside from a slight backache and two minor bumps to our cars, you wouldn’t even know it happened. We were sitting at a stoplight at a complete stop when the other driver hit us from behind.

The accident happened at the end of a fantastic day. It was another beautiful spring day, much like today. We had spent it with family, and then had a fabulous evening just the three of us browsing in the shops of a nearby town.

I don’t know if it was because my son was in the car or that the accident came out of the blue (as they so often do), but as soon as it happened, my sunny mood crashed along with our bumpers.

As I walked today and thought back on the week’s ups and downs, I realized how easily I sometimes let my life outlook be dictated by external events.

Sun shines and so do I. Clouds come and my mood darkens too. Someone else slips up, and something within me slips along with her.

I think when we let the outside world dictate our inner realities, we are like ships without rudders, going wherever the chop on top takes us.

Today, with spring in my step, I vowed to drop my rudder, connect to something deeper and let that which is constant steady me as I go.

What A Miracle!

My son is sitting in the middle of the carpet, legs straight out in front. He bends his right leg a bit, pushing up his pant leg to see his what’s underneath.

He examines what he has discovered there closely as if to say, hmmm…a leg!

Now he pats his leg, this thing he has discovered.

Pat, pat pat. He pats his shin. He pats his knee.

Now, his thigh. Pat, pat, pat. Again and again.

He smiles with delight.

He grasps his knee, holding on so tight it becomes red. His face grows serious as he does this.

He continues holding on tight as he moves his leg.

Knee up. Knee down. Bend, bend, bend.

He smiles again as if confirming—yes, his discovery is indeed a miraculous one.

Now he squeezes, squeezing the baby fat—cellulite to you and me—with delight. He smiles again as he feels the fat between his fingers. Isn’t fat wonderful? Isn’t it miraculous?

He seems delighted, as if fully understanding how lucky he is to have such wonderful fat.

He stops. All motion. Stops.

He is mesmerized with something.

What is it? What now?

He holds his hands out in front of him, as still as can be.

Now his fingers bend. Bending, bending.

Ah, yes, his hands. The hands doing all the patting, exploring, squeezing and feeling—yes, they are miraculous too.

He stares and studies his hands, moving them round and round. He rotates a wrist.

Now he smiles. Not just any smile—a big toothy grin. Wow. What a hand!

He clasps them together, still staring.

Then it starts. Together once. Then apart.

Together again. Apart again. Again and again.

He is clapping now. Clap, clap, clap!

Faster and faster. Harder and harder.

“Yah! Yah! Yah!”

His face beams as he claps. Let’s give this miraculous body a big round of applause!

Mystery of Nature

Gone. They were gone. When I walked by the nest tonight, it was empty.

Just two days before, the female goose sat warming the eggs while the male guarded close by. But today, nothing. No one was on the nest, no eggs visible, no goose standing guard.

I walked a bit further, then headed back, still looking. I saw them finally—the way they used to be before the dawn of spring--the gray pair grazing together on the grass along the riverbank, nonchalantly nibbling the clover.

If it weren’t for the tufted feathers under the female’s body, I wouldn’t have known eggs had been laid and softly hidden within a nest of downy undercoat.

Perhaps the pair was just taking a break, as they sometimes had before. There was sunlight filtering over the nest, after all.

Maybe the eggs were tucked away, and were warm enough. It just seemed odd to me that the pair was so far down river, so far from their brood-to-be or, the other alternative, no little ones in tow.

Maybe something had happened in the past two days since I had been there last. Had the goslings hatched? Had prey seized an unwatched moment of opportunity?

I can’t help but feel a bit melancholy at the possibilities. While other nests are bearing new life or being closely watched, theirs is unsettlingly still. After weeks of watching, I’m left with more questions than answers.

Sometimes our best-laid plans take a detour. Sometimes our hopes, dreams and efforts don’t bear fruit, and so we try again. Sometimes we need to just be patient and wait.

Then it occurs to me. Perhaps the real lesson for me tonight is that as much as we try to understand what “it” all means—whatever “it” is for us today--answers come not through thinking them into existence, but rather when we allow them to be revealed in their own time.

And so for tonight at least, I will not know the answer to the mystery of the nest. Instead, I will strive to keep my eyes and heart open, trusting that whatever comes next--both in my life and that of the geese--and whenever it's revealed, it’s all okay.

The Special Hat

I felt my head nodding “no, no, no”—a visceral reaction—my body taking command of the situation before I even knew why.

When I looked down, there in my hand was a baby’s hand-knitted hat.

Not just any hat, mind you. This one is special.

It is special because it is aqua green and light blue, and was made especially for our son when he was born. Plus, it has a big pom-pom on top.

But none of these were the reasons I was nodding.

I was nodding because this hat is the first one my son wore happily, without complaint or tearing it off with his pudgy, newborn hands.

I was nodding because this hat is what he was wearing when he belly-laughed for the first time in his little life, a good hearty laugh with a glint in his eye as if he and I were sharing a private joke.

I was nodding because never in my life can I ever imagine parting with this very special little hat and all it represents (unlike some of the other things I discovered in the attic).

Some aspects of the past we can let go of easily and effortlessly, without thinking twice. Other “things” (or people, places or aspects of who we are) we struggle over a bit more—debating, clinging, until finally “right action” emerges.

And then there are those items in life like this hat. For these special ones, the choice comes to us, not through any choice of our own, but from some place deep within us, screaming and yelling and moving our bodies in such a way that we know the answer before we even have the chance to consider the question.

If you are ever curious what matters most to you, notice which way your head—or your heart, or whisper within—is nodding when you’re not even paying attention.

Then the choice will be simple. Then you’ll know for sure.