While making online payments and checking emails in the early, quiet of the morning, before beagles hound (heh, heh, clearly pun intended) me for a toast crust and before I must head out for the daily grind, I peruse things that showed up in my inbox while I was sleeping.
I could be using this time to write. Or marketing Out of the Frying Pan, or even taking an online course on something to make me smarter or at least appear smarter. But instead I open interesting articles like the ones this morning. What to order at every MLB stadium. For starters, on this one, I clicked to see what a freakin MLB is. Major League Baseball. This I had to figure out on my own. It is so apparent to any sport fan that this is what MLB is that they didn't even define it. I had to figure it out via thinking and context! (Aren't there bunches of studies that show it's so good for your brain to do puzzles? Look, I was being productive after all!) Plus this is research for my recipe column. I can justify it doubly. I might just want to recreate a super churro or waffle concoctions. Probably not bacon on a stick, ever. However, carrot bacon is the newest meat free bacon option. (Also discovered in one of the many factoid newsletters I get in my inbox.)
Then my little eyes spied a top 15 locations to visit in Italy. I've never been to Italy in my life. But dog gone it, I want to go. There is a huge part of me that wants to buy an Italian farmhouse and live off the delicious land. I don't speak Italian. I have no Italian roots that I'm aware of. I feel kind of the same about English, French, Irish, Spanish, Scottish, well you get it, any European countryside. Italy just feels like the food would be the best and for some reason they would be warm and friendly. The UK feels like it would be too gloomy and grey, (UK spelling, and if I lived in Italy, I could just hop a train and visit the UK and the corgis. I don't want to see the queen but I do want to peek at her corgis!). Also food. In the UK
they eat things like blood sausage. In Italy there seems to be sunshine and bodacious red tomatoes everywhere. And grapes. If they only had mango trees I might just buy a one way ticket today.
And look at the time! I've managed to use my morning well. Got a blog post done. Check. Did a little marketing. Look at the picture and the hot link to my book! Oh, and maybe I'll tweet a link with hashtags #shinythings #squirrel #whoamIkidding?
Did you know that pets can help bring emotional and physical healing? Duh. Of course you knew that, it's not a newsflash or anything. Hence the therapy dogs. etc. But it's really early in the morning and I was awakened by a dog and just couldn't go back to sleep so I thought I'd ramble about love and commitment and feel-feels.
Put your seatbelt on, this is going to get very rambley. Now the above thought I threw out about pets actually makes me laugh a little. There are few things better than a pet who will curl up with you and snuggle when you are down. Healing indeed. However, there is a flip side that you can guess if you've ever potty trained a pet, or cleaned up after one in the middle of the night when the hoarking sound awakens you from a dead sleep. Or when my pups who might have a sour tummy want to go out at 3:00 a.m. to eat grass. This has happened to me. It's real. I don't know if it's a named syndrome or not, it probably should be.
Anyhoo, regardless of the frustrating things that go along with pup parenting, pets add love, joy, peace and snuggles to my life. And that's worth the occasional dirty work or sleepless night. Kind of like marriage, or parenting, or friendship. When we put ourselves out there, stand behind our commitments and just do the hard work in those relationships we get the dividends in return. Not necessarily the way we expect, but blessings come in very unique packages.
A person once told me that she didn't cry, ever. That she had used up all her lifetime's supply of tears years before during a rough patch in life. What I noticed as I observed her interactions was that she indeed didn't cry. But she also didn't seem to feel joy, either, or even notice the beauty in the crazy things. Oh, she politely oohed and ahhed or she seemed to love objects that were beautiful. But there was a disconnect when others in the room were near tears over cuteness or the sweetness of moments. Almost like she refused to feel anything beyond the very expected basic surface emotions that make society run properly. (ha, ha)
I'm sure this works for her. Because if she's locked that door she doesn't go in and lament the decision she's made, there are so many ways to deaden our feelings. Another gal won't get a pet because in 10 years you will have to bury it. She doesn't want to get attached. I get that, I really do. But what is the hidden price you pay for the 10 years you live without the benefits of loving something or someone that much. My daughters, as they navigate this parenting thing, are understanding loving so much it aches. I'm right there with them. The act of living, really living, is full of opportunities to experience the multi spectrum light and color show of love. As much as I want the yellows and bright oranges and brilliant greens of the emotional plane, I also need the indigos and bruised purples to fully appreciate the gift of the yellows.
Even fuzzy-headed (literally and figuratively, I was rudely awakened after all)I know the wisdom of loving and choose to experience the good, the sad, the bad and the divine in the moments gifted to me. There are so many creatures in my life to love til it hurts.
