crazy universe

The universe is sometimes a crazy place to be. It is a wonderful, magical place, sure. And it is also crazymaking sometimes.

Yesterday I stayed over at the Best Girl Dol's house because she and her partner went to Denver for the day for a big concert and booked a hotel to stay overnight. I was on dog-sitting watch. I lived at their place for several months last spring/summer and really love being there. I got to hang out with Maggie the Dog, read books from their bookshelf, and watch their cable TV.

Today I woke up, made coffee in their fancy french press, read, ate breakfast, read, showered, drank more coffee, read some more, and had a luxurious lounge-around-on-someone-else's-couch day. I waited until they got home at 2pm before I left their place to make the journey in the heat back to mine. A 10 minute drive in 100 degree heat is not so fun. Returning home after being gone 24 hours and finding a dead bird on your doorstep, really not fun.

Finding the dead bird really got my mind going...it instantly triggered a memory of finding Pig, one of my chickens dead in the hen house. I had lots of farm memories come flooding back in...memories of all the animals that died on my watch, of the lifeless bodies that I've touched and held in my hands.

And I realized that I had no idea what to do. I mean, I knew what to do in the sense of dead bird must be removed from the doorstep and placed somewhere sanitary. But I'm not on a farm, I'm in an apartment complex...and putting the body in the dumpster just felt wrong. I thought about calling someone, but realized that I could handle it on my own with a little bit of thinking. I realized there was a place outside near some bushes that didn't have any grass and could likely be easily dug with a trowel, so I got my little garden trowel and tested the ground...I wasn't able to dig a very deep hole, but I think it was deep enough. I didn't have disposable shoulder-lenght OBGYN gloves on hand since those farm delivery days are done, but I did have a plastic bag and work gloves. I moved that little body and buried it in that small grave.

That body was so small and so light. The sleeper. (see previous blog post).

Tonight I had dinner plans with my friends who I've known since junior high. They had a baby last weekend, and I was so excited to see them and their new little one. I'm pretty sure I held that baby for more than 2 hours straight. I got to change his diaper, I carried him when we walked around the block, I held him and we stared and stared and stared at each other, I got to feed him, and I held him as he fell asleep and held him while he slept until it got late and I had to leave. It was so hard to let him go. I am crazy in love with this little guy. We're already trying to figure out if I'm going to be Aunt Jennie or Tia Jennie. And he has a nickname in Portuguese that means The Sleeper. His body was so small and so light.

And my mind go whirling into the stars thinking how the universe is a magical, wonderful place. It is a place where in the same day "the sleeper" comes into my consciousness as both a dead bird and a living new baby. That this universe is a place where my hand would touch death and new life on the same day. That the universe is full of coincidence and all coincidences tell us to stop and pay attention, that something special is happening, that something important is going on, that we are all connected and interdependent and impermanent.