#gratitudeNow: No. Two Zen

“Pottybot”

It seems I’m on a theme here. Because this post is about the intersection of mindfulness and… cat poop. It’s not the first time I’ve spoken of this, either.

So this would be my, er, “number two” post on the subject.

So this morning I woke up rather grumpy. I’ve just got a few heavy things on my mind.

First, of course, is that our piece-of-shit President has eight days left in office. He’s done a laundry list of terrible, immoral, illegal, unethical things for which he needs to be held accountable.

And yet, a number of GOP folks won’t. And yet, a whole lot of my fellow citizens don’t see it that way.

Which makes me despondent, and grumpy.

Then there’s tomorrow. Tomorrow is not just the day the Democrats will impeach him again. It’s also my fiftieth birthday. I am weirdly conflicted about this. On the one hand, it’s a milestone to have a fiftieth birthday. On the other, it’s just another day. I know what I wanted to do for my fiftieth birthday. I wanted to be spending it in Florida, at a paramotoring school, and lift off into the air to celebrate. The pandemic, and other life circumstances made that just not possible.

It’s okay.

I am going to do that. It’s not an IF, it’s a WHEN.

Okay, so what’s this all got to do with cat poop. So that death-star-looking-thing by my stairs, that’s my cats’ robotic litter box (seriously), “Pottybot.” (That’s the box’s name, technically speaking it’s a Litter-Robot 3 Connect.).

Well, I’m downstairs, feeding the cats and the fish and myself breakfast. I get the fish fed, get the cats fed, and then good ol’ Pottybot messages me (because, as I said, it’s a robot) that its drawer is full.

Joy.

I immediately stop the process of putting together a bowl of cereal, blueberries, and milk for myself, and go empty the drawer. Which really, is no big deal. It’s an incredibly fast process that is made as pleasant as possible for you by the machine. You open the drawer, draw up the sides of the plastic bag liner, twist the bag shut, knot it. Then you shake open a new liner, pull the edges of it over the four retaining hooks in the drawer to keep it open and taut, and replace the drawer.

It’s like a 4 minute thing, end-to-end. But here’s the thing: when it’s time to do it, it is 100%, no fucking around, time to do it. Leaving the drawer in a full state is what Colonel Joe Bishop in the Expeditionary Force books would call a November Golf, a no-go. The potential cat-poop-calamity that would likely ensue for not doing it is… horrible.

I was glad to do it. Not at first, yeah. But really once I had embraced the necessity of doing it, I was just fine, happy even.

That was when I found my zen. The taoist concept I’m tip-toeing around here, albeit with a gross example, is called wu-wei, the “action of inaction.” It’s the principle of doing only that which you must.

Which really has two sides to it.

First, there’s the not-doing-needless-things-part. Like, my being grumpy about Trump isn’t going to make tomorrow’s impeachment get here any faster. It isn’t going to change that some people are just not good people. It isn’t going to magically rewrite time to make me be in Florida right now, kiting a Paramotor.

But second, there’s the do what you must part. All that expectation-holding-nonsense gets in the way of meeting necessity. When Pottybot told me what I needed to do, it felt really, really good to be able to see that it was vital, and just go take care of it.

After I got Pottybot all taken care of, I washed my hands and made myself that breakfast, and sat mulling all this over. I realized I needed to write this post. And then, while I was doing so, Yang got in the box, and did what cats do in their litterboxes. And then Pottybot took care of it, without a problem. All three of us, just doing what’s necessary.

A story about some real people, in real trouble

If you want to learn more about Isolation Storytime, you can find them at https://isostorytime.com

#gratitudeNow: Angry at the Bananas

You can kind of find mindfulness everywhere. This morning I found it by getting angry at the bananas.

Here’s how that went down.

Came downstairs to make myself some breakfast, including a nice cup of tea. I had this new box of tea pods I broke open.

I decided to get organized about it, and load the new pods into the little rotating stand that I have by the pod machine. But the bananas were in my way. There they were hanging on their little banana hook, in front of the stand.

Stupid bananas!

I picked up the hook and bananas and shifted it, them to our kitchen island. Satisfied with myself, but still angry at this inconvenience I began popping pods in the open spaces in the rack. As I did this some of the pods got dislodged and fell inside the stand.  The only way to get them out was to flip the whole thing upside down and shake the errant pods out onto the counter. Which I did, cussing under my breath.

Great, now I was angry at the pods, the rack, and the bananas.

That was when I found my mindfulness again. This was ridiculous, and really needless and petty. I realized I was not actually angry at the stand, nor the pods, not even those damn bananas. I realized that what I was angry at was my feeling of helplessness.

Which obviously right now comes from something else, you all know what.

I once again connected with a profound truth. In the moment, I often feel fear, pain, and anger... yes, even at bananas.

When I turned to face that fear and anger it didn’t go away, it changed shape to fit context. I could laugh at myself with gentle compassion as I realized the true source of my discomfort. I resolved once again to allow that sometimes I’m going to be scared, sometimes I’m going to hurt, sometimes I’m going to be angry.

Not so much that I’m permitted to be these things, to feel them but rather to fully embrace the truth that I have no choice otherwise, in that moment. Furthermore, that moment, like every moment, ends.

And then I was calm. 

So I did a few things. First, I finished loading the pods back in the stand. At the same time I smiled, laughed a little at how silly I can be. I realized that this whole lamentable affair was a shareable moment. So I took a couple of pictures, made them into the fancy photo you see below. And decided to write this post.