Ben's Cat... NOT!

About 3 years ago, Ben asked if we'd take care of Oscar for a couple of weeks. Now he'd have to pry him from our cold dead hands.  In this picture, he's saying "I see you. No, I mean I SEE you." Or he could be saying, "What the hell are you looking at?"  Or maybe it's, "Bring that BB closer so I can bat at it with my cute paws."

Point is, he's a mystery, like the rest of life.  In his presence I am a happy observer, endlessly intrigued and charmed by the vast chasm between me and him .  

It's when observation is not an option that I get confused.  Take my situation for instance. For a moment, all the pieces of my life aligned.  The spiritual, professional, personal and political were parts of an organic whole.  OK so maybe my marriage is problematic but it's not for lack of love.  We just have a really hard time talking about money. Anyway, except for that, my life was a single organism where each experience and action improved the results of something else I was doing. Do you know how hard it is to arrive at a state of equanimity? Let's just say it wasn't an accident of luck. I was blessed -- and I knew it.  What I didn't count on was how short-lived it would be.  While I was carefully tending to each strand of my life, like a shepard his flock, outside forces intervened. And poof! Serenity disappeared, to be replaced by uncertainty and anxiety.

It's proof -- like I need it -- that control is a mere illusion.  Which recalls a story a friend of mine told me.  Her father-in-law, a native Chinese, came to Vietnam as a 10 year-old in search of his father, who died shortly after the reunion.  Impoverished, he worked hard and by 47 owned plantations and factories.  Then shit happened in the form of the Vietnam War and like that, everything was lost.  So he came to America with his wife and 8 kids and started over.  Then wham! 9-11 and his grocery store was gone.  Once again he starts over.  My friend says, "You'd think he'd be bitter, but he wasn't.  His messagewas, 'Don't put much stock into material things, because they can be taken from you in an instant. Instead count your blessings using a metric that comes from within, not without.'"

Which brings me back to being confused.  I get it, I really do.  The trouble is I don't know how to fix it.  And that brings me back to my husband and money.  But that's a story for a different time.