A friend listed for me what was in her lexicon of memories of my cat based on stories I have told her over the past year that she has been collecting. It was not the most flattering list. Near the top: Sadie trying to squirm her way up into the housing of the left front tire of my car with me trying to accomplish the opposite, hands firmly attached to her torso, pulling and coaxing…pleading. Thankfully, I was more successful than she. (This did not really seem to be a case of warm, collaborative, compromise.) Then there is the story of Sadie staying in virtually the same position under several layers of blankets on a bed for a period of likely about 19 hours one day while we were visiting a cabin. I didn’t think she had died but did check on her tentatively more than once with this possibility in mind. Thankfully, au contraire, she was likely there for such a long time because she was warm, comfortable, and also a bit scared: her new-found burrow offered comfort and a sense of security. The rationale: if I stay here, I will be safe, I will be okay, nothing bad (or worse) will happen. Alternatively: I won’t have to deal with what’s out there and what’s out here feels too difficult to face. I would check on her and she would stare back, sigh, stretch, continue to dwell in her burrow.
This morning, she was at the side door enjoying a favourite warmer weather pastime of hers: with her nose scrunched right up to the screen of the open window, she sniffed the fresh spring air, attending to every little movement and sound, eager for what this sensory input in this moment and the next would be bring. Attending to each moment with such interest, noticing this and this, can hold her attention for hours–or, well, at least, quite a long time until she is ready for possibly her most favourite pastime of all regardless of season: napping–and of particular enjoyment, napping in a patch of sunshine streaming in through a window. Wherever the sunshine lands makes for Sadie the perfect place for a spontaneous bed. If logistically, only one ear can get into the sun, that’s okay; that will also do. I imagine she lies there in the spirit of savouring: how good the quarter-size patch of sun feels landing on her ear. She soaks that good feeling up.
As I watched Sadie eagerly sniffing the air, listening, watching, tail poised in wagging position (yes, cats wag their tails, too), I thought we could learn a lot from her, take a page from her book where values she lives by such as mindfulness, savouring, focus, and relaxation can be found. Then I remembered the tire climbing story and I thought, well, we can also pick and choose. It is important to do that anyway, to reflect and to pick and choose what feels best for us right now, what works for us, what makes sense or is meaningful. In working as helpers, I believe it is important that we support others in their own picking and choosing, too, rather than dictating. It’s okay to offer ideas but not to command.
It seems to me picking and choosing involves knowing ourselves, being in tune with who we are. We consider: What do I like? What do I need? What do I value? What is important to me? Also, what helps? It is possible that there are lessons for all from my long-haired white cat, aging, and with sagging belly. Everyone needs love, for example; everyone needs and deserves that. (I might add here that by extension, my sense is that we need to find ways to give love to others and to ourselves as fully as we can in the ways we can at any given time, acknowledging this may mean sometimes more, sometimes less depending on circumstances, present-moment abilities, limitations, and other needs. By doing this, we do our part to help meet this need for love that each of us has.) There also comes into play, the picking and choosing. What specific thing works for one person or is imbued with meaning is not necessarily the same as that for another. Nor are likes the same, among a multitude of options of likes which cause no harm. Sadie’s interest in sniffing catnip, batting a toy mouse (or a live one for that matter), and chewing on grass is not my own–though perhaps in these, we share values for play, pleasant sensory experiences, nourishing food.
If I were to offer you an invitation today, perhaps it would be this: to connect with that realm of things you pick and choose–those things you deeply value–and take stock. If something you value hasn’t gotten attention for a while, what’s one thing you could to today or this week to give it some energy and attention–even if only in a very small, five-minute, grain of sand kind of way? I am thinking here of the post, Make Small Resoulutions (And Dream Big), of the value of small, and how the small things can really add up.
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