Young at heart key in 2015

It never crossed my mind how much I would treasure peace and quiet until I looked across the room just now and realized the kitten was fast asleep. Asleep instead of tearing around the house strafing curtains and racing up the back of my reading chair only to launch itself into the bookcase.

Of late around here it’s been a crazy cross between the inside of a pinball machine with the steel ball ricocheting from one corner to the another and energy bursts that rival the speed of particles inside the “Large Hadron Collider” near Geneva, Switzerland.

And oh yes, “Lucy” is now “Louie,” after it was discovered that the kitten I thought was a female was indeed born with the family jewels.

I also think Louie was reincarnated from an ace hockey player, given the precise aim on that leftie kitten paw that can shoot a stuffed mouse through the middle of a cardboard ribbon holder, and into a bag of gift bows that was on the floor as I wrapped Christmas gifts this past week. 

The kitten then “cat”-apulted into the bag after it’s toy, exploding all manner of red and green bows everywhere.

I admit a small twinge of payback pleasure when I saw the bug-eyed look of panic in the kitten’s eyes on Christmas Day when the kitchen door opened and all six of my grandchildren burst into the room like the break after the eight-ball.

Jolted from its cat nap with a look of shock, Louie’s escape route was all but thwarted by very excited little people who scurried after a furry tail that raced to disappear in the bedroom and under the bed.

It wasn’t long before one of the children returned with the kitten, holding it like a squeeze toy. I stepped in to dispel the over-loving with a reminder of presents under the Christmas tree, liberating Louie from the clutches of a child. 

The kitten leapt into my arms with gusto, meowing a promise of good behavior for having saved its life.

For the rest of the day everyone observed how docile and well behaved the kitten was, as it lay prone just out of reach of small eager hands. His mask came off five minutes after the children left the house for home on Christmas evening.

Youth—all manner of it—is so very refreshing.

That is my goal for the coming year—to remain youthful in my attitude towards life.

2015 sounds like a youthful, healthy number—one full of fun and adventure and opportunity and possibilities—endless possibilities. I’m all for that.

Go forward. Stay wide open to change. Upset convention. Expect joy.

Happy New Year to you!

Memories keep the magic alive

“What if I choose not to believe?”

It’s a line from one of my favorite movies of the holiday season, “The Santa Claus.”

I’ve always believed in the power of mystery and magic.

I have of course mailed letters to Santa for my children when they were small and I’ve been known to mail a “Dear Santa” letter written solely from me.

I’ve put down on paper all my wishes for the Christmas season, folded the letter into an envelope and addressed it to “Santa Claus, North Pole, Canada.” (After all, he does live in Canada, right?)

Santa writes back. A “Dearest Beth” letter back to me, stamped and postmarked from the North Pole with a handwritten acknowledgment of my wishes. He told me in that letter he would do his best to help those wishes come true.

Getting that letter was more enriching for my grown up soul than a front row seat at a Mark Nepo workshop, although I haven’t yet had that experience. It’s still on my bucket list.

The older I get the more I understand that attitude really is everything. Believe me when I say I know what I’m talking about. But then again, you will figure that out—or not—all on your own, just the way it is meant to be for you in your own life. That’s the beauty of the mystery and the magic.

Pay attention to the magic of life.

One of my very favorite stories about the magic is encapsulated in a memory of when I was sitting in a local restaurant enjoying a Reuben sandwich. Long chewy strands of sauerkraut hung from my lips as the woman approached my table, where I sat with one of my grandchildren.

The little person of my heart was busy dipping a French fry repeatedly in ketchup and licking off the red glob.

We’d been talking about letters to Santa Claus and the excitement of waking up on Christmas morning to find our stockings filled with candies and other delights. The little person of my heart was explaining to me how Santa managed to fit himself into each house—even the ones that didn’t have chimneys.

My sandwich was warm and my attention was focused on how good it tasted and on listening to the conversation that revolved around the magic of Santa.

The woman stopped at our table. I looked up at her standing over me and, feeling a piece of sauerkraut dangling from my lip, pushed it in with my finger as she promptly put her hand on the top of my shoulder.

This woman, with tousled gray-hair and dressed in sweat pants and a big overcoat was a complete stranger.

I’m not normally easily startled and initially I wasn’t in that moment, until I felt her fingers apply what I can only term as a direct and clamping pressure to the muscles near my neck where she had touched me.

I know my eyebrows rose. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have time.

She looked directly into my eyes with palpable urgency and without blinking said, “There is no choice you've ever made, nor any you will ever make, that will limit you as much as you may fear. Get the mud out of your wings. Do it now.”

And then she let go of me, turned and walked out of the restaurant.

My grandchild hadn’t stopped poking the French fry in ketchup during that few seconds of mysterious intervention. I, on the other hand, had to reach up and catch my dropped jaw before the masticated sauerkraut tumbled out of my mouth onto my plate.

The little person of my heart licked off another red glob and said most confidently, “I’ve seen your wings Granny and they aren’t muddy. You just have to believe you can fly and then leap, like I do.”

There is a quote by an unknown sage that reads,” The only way to live is by accepting each minute as an unrepeatable miracle, which is exactly what it is—a miracle and unrepeatable.”

That’s the truth.

The young have much to teach me

As I watched the thing jettison across my kitchen floor and catapult into the spare room, it reminded me of the “Tasmanian Devil” of the ‘Looney Tunes’ series I used to watch on television when I was 12 years old.

And then the fur ball ricocheted back into the kitchen and leapt onto a kitchen chair and launched itself through the swing lid of the garbage can.

Hind legs and a tail stuck out of the can as the thing clung to the bag inside having caught itself mid-hurl when it realized the yucky fate at the bottom of the can.

My outburst of laughter was meant to balance sheer hilarity with the sudden realization of “What was I thinking?” when I decided to get a kitten just because I wanted to give an old cat something new to play with.

The new kitten had been in the house but two hours and already I was kicking myself for listening to my heart instead of my head.

But what else is new. I am forever listening to my heart and putting out “Missing Person” ads for my head, hopelessly lost in the greatest battle ever known to womankind and animal lovers. 

And then there was “Millie,” a 14-year-old matriarch feline well beyond change. When that little kitten entered the house for the first time, Millie’s jaws opened to reveal a second row of teeth I have never seen. Her eyes turned black and she spewed out a guttural bemoaning with bodily contortions the likes of which I never want to witness again.

I nearly called an exorcist.

But my optimistic “cat cohabitation side” persuaded me to wait it out, and in fact things have improved in the days since “Lucy” entered the picture.

Millie no longer contorts, but has mastered the “flat stare of impending death” and a motionless hierarchal statuesque embodiment of a cat ancestor from ancient Egypt.

Nonetheless Lucy has brought a refreshing young spirited flow to my neck of the woods. Curiously this small ball of fur teaches the lessons of moment to moment living as it scampers after the catnip mouse and then plunks itself prone on the floor for a nap, only to awaken 15 minutes later for a pounce and a leap up the new curtains in the living room.

And if the lessons about enjoying the moment aren’t apparent enough for me through the “here and now” of a kitten, I can dwell on the quotable indelible words of my grandson who’d impressed me enough when he said all he wanted for Christmas was to spend time with his family.

Then from the back seat of my car last week he said (without an iota of persuasion) after listening to his favorite song “Hey Brother” by Avicii on my car stereo—“That song fills my mind and empties it of all the things I did in school today.”

Ben is six years old. 

Making happy a place called home

“Read many books.”

My history teacher in high school said those three words every time we left his class.

It’s crowding 38 years since I last walked past that teacher flashing his white-toothed smile and chanting his literary mantra to the group filing out of his classroom.

“Read many books” made me chuckle this morning when I looked at the pile of ongoing novels I have on the table by my reading chair.

I have four books (not including my daily “Letting Go” series) that I pour over for that precious quiet time with my cups of coffee in the wee hours of my waking day.

The little pile of reads that share my chair include a western frontier saga called the “Sisters Brothers” by Patrick DeWitt, Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” and of course my sunny read, “The Alchemist” which continues to show me the way to my own heart.

I’ve also added a 222-page marvel to the mix penned by Gretchen Rubin and entitled, “Happier at Home.” 

Happier at home. I’m not quite there yet.

I still work at being okay with living alone and anything I can do to help me find the gratitude within the little cubicle in my neck of the woods is worth my time.

As the matter of fact, today it was all I could do to get here after work without speeding, smoking a stop sign, or taking out a bridge railing.

Happier at home indeed.

All I could think about was that I had furnace, which was a marvel of invention I had gone without all day while at work. The office was a balmy 9C when we walked in at 8:30 a.m. and never inched up, leaving us clad in winter boots, mitts, and coats for our eight-hour stint.

I didn’t even have to put my sandwich in the lunchroom fridge. It was fine where it sat on my desk, right next to the glass of water that still had an ice cube in it at 4:30 p.m.

I was half way home before I realized I had turned the house thermostat down to 12C when I left this morning because I’m a cheapskate and didn’t want to waste energy.

I had to wear my earmuffs for a half hour after I turned up the thermostat before the house kicked out enough heat so that I couldn’t see my own breath.

And it was a challenge right out of a “Survivor” series when I attempted to change out of my work clothes and into the casual stuff hanging on the hook in the bathroom.

Standing outside an ice cave buck-naked would have been easier than putting a frozen pair of sweats and an ice-cold sweater on my already rigor carcass.

“Happier at home!” I belted out loud as I suffered tortuously through the changeover.

And then I practiced what I am preached.

I turned on the music and turned up the speakers and slinked around my living room to my new favorite tune, “Classic” by MKTO.

Yep, I danced my heart out. 

Happier at home indeed.