of all the really good things in life I have given away. Like my huge bathroom with it's double soaker bathtub and unlimited water supply, and all my art work, antiques, needlepoint, and family heirlooms that stayed in my really great color decorated ex-family home that I reno'd just before I left. I was thinking about my stories and poetry and ideas and experiences that were freely given at a time when I wanted to share them and now I don't have them anymore because they belong to someone else's history. I was thinking about the feel of my little children's hands in mine and how I will never feel that again because my children are all grown up. And I was starting to feel sorry for myself. Until Cedric and Pippa broke into the bathroom and interrupted me by stealing Suzie's food, knocking over the water bowl and peeing on my towel next to the tub.
So, I now have a crappy little bathroom with a dent in the floor and a tub I mostly can't use because water is in fact a precious resource. And my stuff was just stuff, and the colors were nice but would look stupid in here. I write new stories, and new poems, and learn new things as I experience each new moment of each new day. Now I hold my adult children's hands in mine, and they are just as warm and even more familiar and much closer to me now than that distant dreamy, past.
Maybe life is supposed to be like a garage sale where you recycle the old and unwrap the new. Where you pass somethings on but remember them in your heart. Maybe if you hold too tight to things, you lose them forever instead of sharing them around. Cedric and Pippa are recycled, they belonged somewhere else before they came here. Maybe they will be shared and loved again with someone else. Until then, they were causing trouble in my dinky bathroom, with it's crappy, half filled tub and they were pretty funny as they fell over each other to trash a 3 foot space. I guess life is a trade off sometimes too. You give away a really great tub, but you get a cardiac cripple and an ancient tiny Phyllis Dillar poodle in a blue sweater instead.
Thinking of my great giant tub, reminded me of that old game show "Let's make a Deal" As a child, I never used to understand why the contestents were disappointed when they chose door number three and discovered a goat instead of the new car. I always thought the goat was the better prize. I just remembered that tonight.
One thing to think about is that not all stories are written down, everybodys life is a story, every week is a new chapter and as the main characters, we decide how the story is played out.
And every day is a poem Carol, and yours are beautiful.