willing to be amazed

Someone emailed me recently about my continuing optimistic outlook and tendency to focus on the good things around me.

It's true. I can be almost Pollyanna-esque in my view of the world.

However, I do have bad days, and little fits of angst and obsession about things I can't control. The year my son was born I became obsessed with lead paint. Just ask my husband about the dark green goop he had to paint the bathroom with, in the old house we rented. It supposedly sealed in the lead. After many crying spells and dramatic musings on a house I had previously adored, he tried to get at the core of the problem. Why was I so upset? I remember his face when I went into great detail about the various cracks in the old plaster ceiling and how lead dust was just shooting out of them into the air.

This is the kind of thing that feeds my obsessions - the vivid images come and it can be so hard to push them out of my mind.

Not too long after my revelation about geysering lead dust, the landlord/owner insisted on sandblasting the garage, one wall of which bordered the back yard. I begged him not to do it, and explained about the lead issue and young developing brains. He thought I was being ridiculous. When he had his son-in-law come over to start the process, I stood on the back steps and watched. White paint chips quite literally flew everywhere. Like snow. All over the little garden I had tended for years, into the lawn where my year-old son played. It was my little nightmare image made real and worse than I'd imagined.

When the landlord came over to inspect the work, he found me with a shop-vac, trying valiantly to vacuum up the paint chips in the back yard. It was a futile effort, and I was crying because I knew I couldn't get it all up. I told him we would be looking for a new house, and that I was sorry he had chosen to ignore my request. He left in a huff, but returned an hour later and apologized. He begged me to reconsider, and promised to never raise our already below-the-market rent. He started crying himself.

This is the kind of scenario that could go many different ways, but for me, what always happens is the realization that something bigger is going on. Standing there with the shop-vac nozzle in my hand, a gruff old man crying because I had called him on his behavior, and my in-the-moment decision to give notice on a wonderful house that was so cheap to live in it was almost a miracle, I suddenly knew that something amazing was happening. We were supposed to move. It was time.

I said this to him, and we made our peace. I found a house in a neighboring town where my private practice was already located, where my husband could take the classes he'd wanted to take without the hideous commute, and where my parents could visit so much more easily.

Everything rolled quietly into place.

This is just one example of the "flow" of life I've noticed and trusted for many, many years. I don't really know why. But I've experienced it so much I expect it to happen, and perhaps that's why it does.

Awhile back, someone remarked that they start reading every book looking for something to make them fling it aside. My response was that I start every book I read willing to be amazed. And often enough I am.

In a way, that's the mantra I try to live by. It comes pretty naturally to me, so it isn't a chore. Occasionally it has drawbacks, like when some fantastical idea I have gets shot down by the reality of a budget, or circumstance. Sometimes I have to run through a patch of angst before I get to the flow. But as I get older I find myself skipping that stage and getting to the good stuff much more quickly.

Today, we have gray skies and some mild gusting wind. Potentially severe weather is on the docket this afternoon. But yesterday my husband loaded each stall with clean shavings, and this morning I made myself the brown sugar-cinnamon oatmeal a character had in the book I'm reading. (I read this passage last night before bed and it made my mouth water) I know that when I walk out to the barn there are four horses and a little donkey who will neigh and bray and remind me that, yes, there is lots to be amazed about. And I'm perfectly willing to let them show me.