Half a Baby Bunny

I'm going to cheat now. For whatever reason, my thoughts today turned to an event and a subsequent  post from a blog I wrote in 2014. That year, I challenged myself to fall in love with something every day and write about it. And I did. Every damn day. For a year. The blog was called "Falling on Purpose."

One of the things I love about writing is that when you begin to write something, you don't necessarily know where the writing will lead you. That was true in this case. I decided to fall in love with half a dead bunny. I wasn't sure why. But as I continued trying to sort it out through writing, I discovered something figurative lurking behind the obvious. And I don't know why this post came to mind today, but it seemed worth sharing with you. So here it is:

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Half a Baby Bunny

Let me take you back to my first post and the Billy Collins poem that was my inspiration.  

In the very first stanza, Collins falls in love:

This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

Let me remind you, too, of my June 15 post, in which my killer cat took down a pesky chipmunk.  I could hardly be angry with her for her murderous instincts, as I was the one who commissioned her to do so.  But I was able, nonetheless, to forgive the tiny rodent for the damage done in my garden, and to fall in love 

with him.

But this time, Cassie the Killer may have gone too far.  Last night, I woke to that terrible sound 

of crunching bones, and figured that Cassie had caught another mouse.  When she devours 

her prey, she usually cleans her plate except for the carefully removed stomach and 

maybe the head, so I felt no need to get up in the middle of the night to clean up.  Imagine my 

surprise (and my scream) this morning when I stepped into the living room to find the back half 

of a baby bunny on the floor.  Not a pretty sight.  (I am sparing you a picture.)  The stomach 

had been removed, but there was blood, and (forgive me for being graphic here) 

the poor little thing must have pooped his pants in fear, because there was that, too, 

minus the pants.  And, of course, there was the whole back end of the bunny, little legs and tail.

I admit, I was pissed at the cat.  Pissed at her for killing a baby bunny and pissed at her for

leaving me her mess to clean up.  But you remember that my mission with this blog is to fall 

in love, not fall in hate.  So I forgave the cat again, and considered falling in love with the 

half a bunny.

The question is, "Which half?"  Did I fall in love with the furry back end, the tiny legs, the fluffy tail, 

the isolated tummy, the blood and the poop?  Or did I fall in love with the half that disappeared?  

The half that was settling in my cat's belly and lulling her into a morning nap?

Do we fall in love with what is present or what is missing?  The seen or the unseen?  The known 

or the unknown?  The reality or the memory?

I'll let you think that one over and decide for yourself.

Where the Hell Have I Been?

I seriously didn't realize that it's been two weeks since my last post. But happily, my absence is not because of anything bad that happened. Quite the opposite. I've had company, begun some projects, finished a couple of novels, visited the beach, and procured a Florida Medical Marijuana Card. It's all good.

Life at this age is funky. There are just so many things one can let go of. I've been thinking a lot about how brainwashed we can all be when we are young. Take that rule that one must never wear white after Labor Day or before Palm Sunday or Easter or Memorial Day or whenever the hell it was that the fashion police said it's okay now. (Is this just a law in the Northeast?) I lived by that rule most of my life . . . until I finally stopped and realized what a stupid friggin' rule it is. Even though my winters in Florida make this a non-issue, I still call up that rule whenever I dare to wear a pair of white jeans in the off-season. I feel downright defiant when I don those jeans and go out in public, damnit!

So what other rules can and should be broken? I've been working really hard at not saying, "Bless you!" (or god forbid, "God bless you!") when someone sneezes. It's a hard rule to break! I know, I know, its origins lie in the idea that, during the bubonic plague in Europe, Pope Gregory suggested that saying "God bless you" when someone sneezed would protect that person from getting the plague. Last time I checked, there was no bubonic plague going on in my neighborhood, so why do we continue? We don't say "God bless you" when someone coughs or farts or otherwise expels some holy spirit into the atmosphere, do we? Please don't misunderstand . . . if you want to God bless everyone who sneezes, go right ahead. And if you don't like that I am trying to break the habit, then just don't sneeze around me, okay? (At least I won't catch the plague from you.)

And then there's that Marijuana Is Evil rule that has been around most of my life. Reefer Madness. Gateway Drug. Just Say No. I thought I'd never see the day when pot would be decriminalized, let alone legalized. But here we are! Yes, we have to go state-by-state, and oddly, marijuana use is still against federal law. Last year, Canada made pot legal in the entire country, which makes more sense than this state-by-state thing. But, hey, it's a start. And it's about time.  Just try not to go "one toke over the line," okay?

Like Trying to Give CPR to a Dragonfly

Everybody's worried about time
But I just keep that shit off my mind
     ~  Ziggy Marley ("Dragonfly")

I'm used to walking through a convention of dragonflies on my morning trek. I've mourned the inability of my cellphone camera to be able to capture a picture, as they dart about with such rapidity. But yesterday, I happened to get a picture up close . . . of a downed dragonfly, struggling for its life. How I spotted the tiny thing on the ground, I'm not sure, although its jeweled visage may have been the reason. I poked at her a bit, hoping to compel her to fly up into the air and rejoin her friends. She wasn't having it. In fact, she seemed to be stuck to the pavement, although it did not appear that she'd been flattened by a pickup truck or anything. I was finally able to unstick her from the pavement and relocate her to a sandy spot on the side of the road.

And then I wondered what else I could do. Any further poking or prodding I did just seemed to upset her, as she whisked her fragile wings in distress. I repositioned her close to some grass in hopes that she could use the blades to climb upon and then rise in glorious flight. And maybe that's what happened. On my subsequent laps around the park, I tried to find her again, but had no luck. Granted, the chances of spotting a dying dragonfly on the side of the road are slim, but I choose to think that she did, indeed, recover and fly away.

Dragonflies have been around for over 300 million years. I know, I know, it's impossible to wrap one's head around that kind of time. So let's just say that they've been around a very long time. There are about 5000 known species, and 182 of them live in my home state of New Jersey. And check this out: Sussex County, where I live in the summer, has more species of dragonfly than any other county in the United States at 145!!! I personally think they are all residing in my backyard. And lucky me . . . one dragonfly can eat from 30 to hundreds of mosquitos a day. (Dragonflies and bats are keeping me itch-free.) But if a dragonfly can't fly, it will starve, as they only eat prey that they catch while flying.

Which brings us back to my rescued dragonfly. Did she starve to death? Or did she recover? I know I've spent way too much time stressing over this. She was just one insect, albeit with compound eyes and the ability to fly 18 mph.

That worry aside, I welcome my morning walks for the escape from the troubles of the times. When I am among the egrets, the dragonflies, and the parakeets, and even the alligators and armadillos, I don't think about nuclear war or children in cages or climate change or hush money paid to porn stars. I don't think about the future (or whether there will be one). There's not much I can do about any of these matters that are destroying us. I feel helpless most of the time.

Like trying to give CPR to a dragonfly.

A Love Letter to My Son on His 27th Birthday

Twenty-seven! How did that happen? Your birthday presents another opportunity for me to be reflective, to call back memories of another time, when the future was ahead and I was checking off all the boxes (career, husband, home, children). You were a gift. Sort of a happy surprise. And you are here now, celebrating 27 years of YOU! Happy Birthday!

Early memories point me to the lullabies that I sang to you to get you to go to sleep. "A Child's Gift of Lullabies" can still bring me to tears. And then there were the Spot & Petey years, which seemed to last forever. Those "telling stories" of the adventures of your beloved stuffed animals are a sweet reflection. While I don't remember the stories that well, I do remember how we populated them with so many characters. Jack Frost, Easter Bunny, Santa Claus . . . I owe you an apology for suggesting that Leprechaun would lick you if you didn't fall asleep. But hey, I was desperate! Forgive me?

It wasn't long before you moved into your Tools & Weapons phase. You had quite a collection of Cool Tools, which made Christmas shopping relatively easy for Santa that year. As for the weapons, your sisters remember well (and with some disdain) how you had a plastic basket full of toy guns. I recall specifically the wooden "rifle" that your dad carved for you. It accompanied your Davy Crockett coonskin cap on many a journey. I find it interesting that you are now the owner of a real gun. I think you are in possession of your dad's coonskin cap? You should wear it when you go hunting!

Ah, and after a brief love affair with "Howwy Pottah," you segued first into what I call the "Hair Gel Years" and then into your heavy metal phase. A true test of parenthood is being able to tolerate the AC/DC onslaught. I tried to steer you in another direction, taking you to concerts by Neil Young, The Who, and Tom Petty. I think I succeeded in influencing your musical tastes. You and I like a lot of the same music, don't we?

High school was a rough go. You tried to hide your sadness, and I regret that I did not grasp how deep it was. I guess we were both in denial. I will be forever grateful for baseball! It provided much joy during those difficult years. The sound of bat making contact with ball will always take me back to those years, cheering your skill, your speed, your knowledge of the game. You were my Catcher in the Heart.

And then college. I will never forget the day that I dropped you off at UVM and walked away alone one last time. Your dad never got to experience those rites of passage, those emotional separations of parent and child, those endings and beginnings. But you found yourself while there, and you rocked it! I dropped off a child, and you returned a man.

Post-college, you exhibited the courage and sense of adventure that has ever since defined you. Less than a week after your graduation, you drove across the country by yourself to begin an internship in California. One of the highlights of my life was the road trip you and I embarked on when I flew out to visit you. Me, old enough to be your grandmother! Two weeks on the roads of Northern California, replete with baseball, breweries, wineries, National Parks, and coastline. It is one of my fondest memories.

When you were little, you used to reach your arms up to me and plead, "Huggies!" I would pick you up, and you would nuzzle into my neck. I would dance us around a bit until you indicated that you were satisfied, and I would let you down again. Until the next time. Around that time, I remember Mary H giving me a magazine article she'd come across titled "The Last Time." Basically, it posited that, as parents, we make note of the "first times" (first time sitting up, first time walking, first words, first day of preschool, etc.), but we don't take note of the last times. This is mostly because we don't know it's the last time when it happens. When was the last time that you asked me to pick you up and give you a hug? I don't know. I didn't make note of it. And I suppose this is a good thing, because if we knew it was the last time, we would be confronted with something that would seem like an insurmountable loss.

Sam, you are a good man. You are full of so much love and generosity. You are capable of great successes, and you are custom built for home and family. I know you are an old soul and that it seems to take so long to get to where you want to be. But you'll get there. My birthday wish for you is that you take good care of yourself, both physically and emotionally. I understand the sadness that you carry inside, and I cannot promise that it will ever go away. But you will also have great joy in your life if you stay on the same path that you are on now. I promise.

Happy Birthday, boy of mine. I hope this letter picks you up and hugs you!

Love always, Mom