I like to believe it waits just for me. It is, after all, only a few blocks from my house, with parts of it almost hidden. It is an old brick wall of undetermined age. Cloaked beneath heavy ropes of wisteria and ivy, it is slowly falling away, clutching pieces of itself together with decaying iron bars still inset in its impotent sides, protecting nothing. more “Abandoned beauty.”
He was barely two weeks old. The colt with no name. He had a sort of air of expectation about him. Like he thought maybe someone would be taking him back home soon. And he would be able to see his mother again. He was starting to get hungry; and I suspect he wanted very much to be able to taste and smell and feel his mother’s warmth. more “The colt with no name.”
A spirit came knocking at my door the other night. Twice it knocked – five raps each time. And then it sat its misty, transparent, ethereal self down on a chair just outside the door, awaiting my answer. I saw it through the window. more “A ghostly knocking at my door.”
The tiny kitten was found in a window box of flowers. Sitting among the tulips. Discovered by a young girl named Rosie.
Leading up to that moment, the innocent animal had been pushed out into the dusty street with a broom, soaked with a hose, chased by a dog, and threatened by a woman wielding a stick. And she was homeless. But she never lost hope. And, finally, she was safe. She was found. She belonged. more “Lessons from a storybook cat.”
When Groucho Marx said: “If you aren’t having fun, you’re doing something wrong,” he probably didn’t have Aiken resident and engineer, Steve Hand, specifically in mind. Nor was he likely referring to black holes, time warps, gravitational waves and fourth dimensions – or two-mile-long vacuum tubes, laser beams, 40 years of invention, creation, innovation, and supposition – or a long-anticipated, often doubted, once-in-a-lifetime, scientific breakthrough that, when converted to sound, was no more than a small, faint, “chirp” – perhaps as if it were one long, collective, exhaled breath that could be heard all over the globe.
But, according to Steve Hand, it was breathtakingly fun. more “Having fun … doing something right.”
“I want to do that,” flashed through my mind. It was, in fact, the first, impulsive thought that came to me as I watched my cat Tuppence sauntering across the roof of my one-story cottage. She had been sitting quietly at the top-most peak of the roof when I pulled my car into the driveway; but as I made my approach toward the house, she began walking along the entire outer edge of the structure – arched tail, ho-hum pace, devil-may-care attitude. The kind of walk that runway models assume for Victoria’s Secret. more “Walking on rooftops.”
Indy is completely blind now. It’s the diabetes catching up with him, of course. Not unexpected, but cruelly quick to develop.
A Rottweiler-Shepherd mixed-breed, who came to live with me just a couple of years ago, Indy will be ten in another month. Most dogs of his age and size would be winding down by now. Many with his physical condition might be giving up entirely. But not Indy. more “Learning to run in the dark.”
“At night, who has not heard ghostly steps upon the stairs, the soft closing of unseen doors, the tapping on a window, and, perchance, a sigh or the sound of tears? Timid souls may shudder and be afraid, but wiser folk smile, with reminiscent tenderness, when the old house dreams.”
Author Myrtle Reed wrote this passage in her novel “Lavender and Old Lace” well over a century ago, which was a good fifty years before my own home was even a blueprint. And yet, I have found that my house dreams as vividly as any. more “A house dreaming … a house remembering.”
Sometimes individuals seem to be blown into our lives like scraps of wisdom – on winds of circumstance or chance.
And they seem to come to us at our thinnest moments. Breaking into us. Awakening our present. Reassuring our past. Infusing our future with possibilities. more “Scraps of wisdom, on wind and wings.”
“The purpose of life is to be useful, to be compassionate … to have it make some difference that you have lived.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is day 83 of Indy with diabetes. Indy is the Rottweiler-Shepherd mixed-breed dog who became a member of my family almost two years ago, at the age of 8. Other than the diabetes, his health has been quite good. But this morning I had to give him his 165th shot of insulin. And, somehow, I think he knows. Although it would be impossible for him to truly understand the need for insulin, I believe he senses that we are now living with a new kind of dependence between us. more “To be useful … to make some difference.”