Encounters

Peep

Walter can be such a child sometimes. I love that twinkle in his eyes like at that time when I came home in the evening, just as it was getting dark, and he told me he had something to show me. Signaling for me to be very quiet, he took my hand and guided me to the avocado tree in the backyard. On a low branch there was a tiny bundle of feathers that looked pale against the shadows. We walked back into the house and he told me how he was sitting in the back deck and the little thing just flew and sat on that branch, apparently for the night.
“We cannot leave him there,” I protested immediately, “something will happen to him.”
“I don’t know if it’s a wild bird or someone’s lost pet.” Walter reasoned.
“That is clearly someone’s lost pet,” I responded, “it won’t survive out there!”

We weren’t in the least prepared to rescue a canary; we didn’t have a place to put it while we tried to find its owner; yet, with darkness falling quickly, we knew we had to act. We took Fiesta’s kennel, which is made of metal wires, put a blanket around it, a stick across through the center, and voila, we had our bird rescue site.

It was easy for Walter to grab the baby and bring it inside. He placed him on the stick, covered it with the blanket, and for added measure, we closed the door to the room where we had place the makeshift birdcage.

I accuse Walter of being a child, but I can be a big child myself sometimes also. With excitement, the next morning, I opened the door slowly, as soon as I woke up, to see how our guest had spent the night. I found him outside the “cage,” on top of the blanket. So much for keeping him contained!

I grabbed the smallest seeds from our bird seeds we kept handy and served him his breakfast. I expected him to sing with joy; instead, all I got was a couple of “peeps.” “Come on, little one,” I urged, “you can do better than that.” Typical of my human habit, I was expecting instant gratification for my efforts. The task at hand for the morning: try to find out if anyone in the neighborhood had lost a lovely bird.

We ask our immediate neighbors and people from further down the street walking their dogs, but nobody knew of anybody who’d lost a bird. We figured he could have the room for the day, and fiesta wouldn’t mind giving up her kennel one more night.

The next day, thinking this was to become a permanent resident, I went on Craig’s list and found a birdcage, with all the bell and whistles included, and bought it for ten dollars.
The bird was so happy in it, Walter joked that the guy I got the cage from was perhaps the one who’d lost the bird, and that was the bird’s original home. Something that was not possible given the fact there were spider webs on it when I picked it up. Then we had the task of finding an appropriate name for our new “child.”

“Peep” became the baby’s name. We decided it was a female since, to our knowledge, female canaries were the ones who didn’t sing.
I quickly grew fond and attached to that sound. “Peep, peep” I would hear every time I stepped into the room. In a couple of weeks, having another pet in the house had become routine. I changed the water every morning, along with the food. At night, I would cover with a blanket the cage, which had found it’s place in a corner by the window overlooking the backyard.

My grandmother loved birds. She said that it was a good omen to have birds nesting in one’s house or property. She said that birds are very sensitive to good, positive energy. A bird would never come near you if you were full of negativity; therefore I took it as a great sign that this baby would choose our avocado tree to spend the night when he had lost his original home. Someone’s loss had become our blessing and we welcomed it with open arms.

When I was in the house, I would take Peep in his cage outside. I would hang it from a branch under the avocado tree, believing it was the best treat for the little thing. I was aware there was a cat in the backyard, so I always kept a close eye on the baby when it was outside. One day, I came back to find the cage hanging askew, perfectly close, not a feather indicating a cat had gotten into it, and the baby forever gone.

I hated feeling like a failure. I had failed this creature and the universe’s trust in me that I could care for this baby. My grandmother was spinning in her grave pissed off at what she would consider her responsibility for not teaching me to be responsible for other life forms.

Ultimately, it was another reminder of a life lesson that seems to elude my understanding: Life is to be lived, with all its inglorious glory and terrific beauty. The lesson is not to be learned, it is to be received. Life is not about happiness, deliverance from sorrow, or creating anything. It is about experiencing it. Now you feel good, then bad, then good again. Today you receive a “good” omen, then a “bad” one, then a “good” one again.
Those who focus on being this vessel of “goodness,” of “positivity,” know nothing of the nature of the world.
It was Octavio Paz who wrote that the verb to be was the most meaningless verb in any language because it relies on what follows in order to have meaning.
That is the lesson I haven’t learned. I don’t know how to simply BE. I hang on to every feeling, experience and memory as if the rest of my life depended on it. My problem: I don’t think I wish to learn.

The Junk Drawer

After doing housecleaning for a living for more than ten years and becoming more conscientious about my own home organizing skills, I decided that everyone deserved and should have a corner, a cabinet or a drawer where anything goes. A place where all those miscellaneous items that do not belong in any other organized area of the house should be placed. A space where apparent chaos reigned and where it was OK to let it all go…literally! I called this practice The Junk Drawer Principle.

Similarly, I thought, in our behavior or personality there should be one thing in which we allowed ourselves to be disorganized, chaotic; an activity in which we could be uncivilized, unruly, and mean; one part of us in which we let loose and let it all go to hell; our personality’s junk drawer.

The Junk Drawer Principle, as manifested in my personality, used to happen when I got in my car. Normally, I was the nicest man when you met me anywhere. I was caring, loving, genuine, generous, attentive, considerate and forgiving. But when our paths crossed and I was behind the wheel, I was the biggest A-hole you would ever meet. I lost my temper easily with drivers who did not follow my high driving standards. I would swear like a drunken sailor at people for the sole reason on being in MY lane. I was unforgiving and became rude. I used to tailgate people and flash my bright lights at them. In three words, I was UGLY.

Alright, some credit is my due: I stopped flashing my bright lights after I did that to someone driving southbound on the I-5. It had been a long day at work, it was late at night and all I wanted was the warmth of my bed and a good night’s sleep. This driver got in front of me clearly at a slower speed. After almost rear-ending said person, I flashed my bright lights repeatedly. Suddenly, I saw the car veer to the right, almost leaving the road, and then to the left across all the lanes, almost hitting the divider. I proceeded cautiously to pass this person to give them “the look” and, as I was doing so, I saw the sweetest, scared-to-death face of this minute, old, old lady wearing thick glasses.
The thought that came to mind was: If this lady were my grandmother, would I like hearing that she had lost her life because some impatient idiot flashed the bright lights at her making her lost control of her vehicle?
I stopped flashing my bright lights altogether. I figured since my odds of selecting people who deserved such behavior wasn’t 100% accurate, it was best not to do it at all.

Still, following the logic of The Junk Drawer Principle, I always felt entitled to allowing my driving be that aspect of my life in which I didn’t have to improve; that part of my personality and behavior where I didn’t have to be in control, in check. The one thing I could just let go to hell.

That was until I read A greater psychology, the psychological thought of Sri Aurobindo, Edited by A.S Dalal. I was enthralled by the vision and scope of this man’s psychology. His knowledge of Western psychology was astonishing yet, what attracted me the most to it was his inclusion of spiritual development as part of someone’s psychological identity.
It was not an easy book. I had had it for about ten years prior. I remember trying to read it before and I just couldn’t get into it. Well, I finally did and I am a better human for it.
The one thing that impacted me the most was when I read that one’s spiritual growth should have a positive effect and great influence in one’s mind, body, and spirit. It all should be reflected in our being and behavior, in who we are and how we act at any given moment, all the time.

A few months ago my partner and I moved to Desert Hot Springs from San Diego. We still work in San Diego three days a week making our commute of almost 150 miles a solid two hours each way. The two-lane highways connecting the I-15 and the I-10, the 215 and the 60, made my “junk drawer” difficult to bear. I felt so spiritually connected and balanced four days a week but, once I got in the car to go back to San Diego, I just lost it. I couldn’t handle the lane-hogs. I would find myself yelling “SLOW TRAFFIC STAY RIGHT!!!” I couldn’t stand people changing lanes without using their turn signals, talking on their cell phones, tailgating others: all things I had stopped doing long ago.

I found myself becoming one of them, doing all the things I had worked hard to eliminate from my life and I realized that perhaps I still had some growing and learning to do. It was obvious I needed to reacquaint myself with the lessons learned. It was time to practice what I know.

When I find myself aggravated by someone’s driving there are a few techniques that make my life immediately better:

1. I take a deep breath and hold it for 4 seconds allowing myself to really feel the anger; but when I exhale, I visualize all the negative energy in my mind, body and spirit leave along with my body’s toxins. Then I calmly take another gentle breath and focus on a pleasant thought.
2. I give people the benefit of the doubt knowing that it’s not a gift I give them but rather a gift I give myself. After all, we human beings have a tendency to get distracted with our problems, worries, or situations that keep us from being in the moment.
3. I practice compassion. I have no way of knowing the sorrows and suffering that people carry with them everywhere they go, including while driving. If the person in front is suffering or in pain, how could they focus on their driving?

Yes, I have decided that my spiritual growth should be reflected in everything I do. No more “junk drawer” … at least not the way it used to be.
I have since learned that I can still hang on to The Junk Drawer Principle but my junk drawer doesn’t have to be the chaos it used to be. I can still have one aspect of my personality where everything goes, everything but the negative, what I should discard, and what is useless and doesn’t serve me any more.
I can as well have one drawer where I can put all those miscellaneous things that don’t belong in any organized part of the house yet…there is nothing wrong with discarding what I know I will not use and getting good drawer dividers.