Win a few, lose a few

Good news (at least to some, not sure who exactly, maybe just my mother). I just uploaded the massively wretched tome, the first draft of my dissertation proposal, all 172 pages (counting front matter, references, and appendices). The courseroom swallowed it with a slightly longer than normal gulp, and now it's there, posted in cyberspace, visible evidence of my willingness to take the next step in the process of earning this doctoral degree. I'm not sure what I pictured these days would be like, way back in 2005 when I first started this endeavor. I think my original goal was to teach online in an adobe hut in the desert. And to be a more valuable employee to my career college employer. Foolish girl, you say? Well, life was simpler back then, when I was naive and uninformed.

For the past 2,677 days (counting much?) I have lived in the fretful fog of the moment, just trying to get the writing done, take care of my students, eat good food and drink water, live in the present, do the next right thing. I haven't thought much about what comes next, after this journey is over. (I used to say if, but it's starting to look likely that I will finish, barring something unforeseen, like a party bus or an asteroid). Except for a general sense of anxiety and some hazy... I won't even call them plans.. I don't have a clear picture of a future. This is not a bad thing.

Unexpected events happen. Like today, for instance, the maternal unit called to ask me to take her to urgent care. She suspected she got bit on the ankle by a malevolent critter on her back porch, a spider, perhaps. This happened last Tuesday. Her right ankle swelled up like a sausage. Since then, she's been hobbling around in slippers with her walker, not driving, not eating much, popping quarter-tabs of oxy and hoping it will go away. No such luck. So today we spent three hours on a gorgeous Easter Sunday morning getting her through urgent care and over to the pharmacy to fill a prescription for an anti-inflammatory. And pick up a box of generic cheerios, so she would have something to eat tomorrow.

That is what I mean. You can plan all you want, but life does what life is going to do. Other people are busy living, and sometimes their lives collide with my plans. I have no control over events, in my life or anyone else's. In some ways, this is frustrating, but in other ways, it is strangely liberating. To accept the invitation to give up the illusion of control is a rare opportunity to appreciate the moment. To be here now, something I've been practicing for the last seven years. It's easier to accept the gift when the sun is shining like it is today. It's 72°. Rain is on the way, but right now the air is golden and ripe with the scents and sounds of spring. A stellar bluejay stole some moss from my back porch. Nest building time.

A woman who lives at the end of the gravel driveway was walking by as I went out to dump my kitchen scraps in the green compost bin. She hurried over to me, pointing at the back of the Love Shack.

“Did you know you have a rat living under your back porch?”

I started to feel some shame, because yes, I know we have a rat living under the porches, and I don't particularly care. Hey, wait a minute, I said to myself.

“Yes, we have a rat,” I said. “We also have birds, squirrels, possums, and sometimes, raccoons. And moles!” Implying that it's a regular zoo in our six-foot-wide strip of nature, and how cool is that? “Do you have moles down there on your corner?” She forgot that she believes that a rat is a bad thing to have lurking under one's porch.

“We don't have moles, but my neighbor does,” she replied. “And she keeps her yard perfectly manicured. The moles drive her crazy!”

Now we were rooting for the moles. Long live wildlife. Yay for fat rats who live under porches. Yay critters, in general. I'm happy to fatten up a rat with spilled birdseed. Why should this little piece of the planet be exempt from harboring god's myriad creatures? (If there is a god, yada yada yada.)

And the plot thickens. Now I hear the sound of running water. Back in a mo. Ok, I'm back. I peered out my back door. The basement door is open, and there are two short, scratched-up surfboards propped against the fence. It looks like the quiet weekend at the Love Shack is over. My neighbor has returned. Now if I'm really lucky, I'll get to hear her making out with her boyfriend till the early hours of the morning.