I sit on the eastern edge of the porch, woods cornering around me while the wind shakes up everything then settles it down. While it’s a lovely day with wavering sun streaming diagonally across part of the screen of this screened-in porch, I feel quietly sad. I could say it’s the news of the day — hearing that an acquaintance died, or thinking of a memorial service coming up this weekend for someone I love — but I woke up this way.
One of my friends says the innate state of humans, when they feel connected to life itself, is to be a little sad because of all the impermanence churning through. Things come, things go, and people too. He says you see this kind of sadness in the eyes of animals too. But I’ve wondered more about the opposite innate state — a kind of quiet happiness because of all the life that keeps coming, such as the wind at this moment, shaking the osage orange tree then stopping on a dime. Or the dog, suddenly looking out in excitement at the butterflies criss-crossing each other’s paths.
I remind myself that feelings, the great prima donna performers of our lives, need no reason to loom small and large, and whatever their spiel, they’ll leave the stage eventually for whatever comes on next. I also remind myself that there’s this: the surprise, strength and vibrancy of life at any given moment.
Like just now when the kitty cat, who I didn’t even know was outside (and isn’t supposed to be outside because of the coyotes in the area), comes strolling through the thick overgrown of the woods until she’s rolling on her back on the driveway. I go and get her, carrying her home, both us purring in our own ways to be together and even a little happy.
