Owling At the Moon

Yesterday was a bit of a disappointment, wonderful accomplishment and miraculous events. It has definitely been a weird year. I am on hiatus from my project due to house showings. I should have recognized that now would be a difficult time to do what I wanted, but I thought I would give it a try. I have not totally abandoned my idea of self care; I have merely revised my expectations and goal driven dates.
The disappointment came in the form of talking with friends who are currently not being recognized by their company. They have not received raises since a decade ago and they were told yesterday that they will not get any now either. They are stricken. Grief, disappointment, low morale, and of course frustration, have them feeling very down in the dumps. I feel for them because when I worked as a nurse we didn’t get paid raises either. There was always some excuse for the company to turn their backs on us and make us feel as if we didn’t deserve to be paid at all. I remember telling my friends about this and not wishing this feeling on a dog, let alone folks who have dedicated their lives to a company, who now feels absolutely no loyalty to them. It’s excruciating to watch.
My youngest child, Betty, who is graduating next month, was nominated for “Most Talkative” and “Miss KHS”. She won “Most Talkative”. Michael and I have watched her work so hard for that high school. Although she didn’t win Miss KHS by her peers, she is all that and so much more to us. The nomination was a real honor. There are hundreds of kids who attend that school and she was nominated as one of three. Michael and I were so very proud of our girl.
My oldest child, Christine is a senior in college. After working so hard at school, carrying a part time job, volunteering for professors, her fraternity and being there for her friends, she had been feeling stuck. The never ending to do list she faced everyday was getting to her. “I feel like my life is never going to start”, she moaned on the phone. “Hang in there,” I told her, “things are just going to get better.” Sure enough, she hung in there and is currently on a flight to NYC to see world renowned art museums. She has dreamt of this day for years. She has spent years and years studying art history, preparing herself for opportunities unknown. No one deserves this trip more than she does. I tell my kids good luck is merely preparedness meeting opportunity. Christine’s good fortune had more to do with her tenacity than anything else.
I had fallen asleep last night feeling restless. My life is full of opposites right now. One response to our house was not overwhelming positive, while another was. One career is stalling while another is just beginning. One child will be just starting college while another will be finishing up. Our renovation is over and we are looking for a new house with old problems. I feel like a living paradox. I struggled to fall asleep, begging my mind to slow and stop the chatter. I let go of one question at a time that was plaguing my brain for immediate answers that I do not have. I lay looking at nothing, hoping for a reprieve. I started saying to myself in my head, “I have no control over any of this. This is not my battle to fight, my problem to solve or my question to answer. God, please help me to let go and know that it’s not up to me.” I fell asleep a little later. I was dreaming that people had barged into our newly fixed up home and began ripping things apart. I was irate in the dream and began screaming and pushing these intruders towards the door. As I fought my own subconscious in my dream, I had this feeling of utter despair. In this exact moment I woke up in a cold sweat. I sat bolt upright and focused my eyes on the clock. It was exactly 1:21 am. My heart pounding, my breath coming in short bursts, I knew sleep would not be mine for quite some time. I put my feet on the floor and forced myself to hoist my butt up and headed for the kitchen. My kitchen is my refuse. It is the place I live the most, work the hardest and express myself every day. I grabbed a glass of ice tea and decided to go sit outside for the fresh air. I was sitting outside, forcing myself to take deep breaths in order to avoid an anxiety attack. Worry began to fill my already busy head and I feared once it started I would slowly fall down the slippery slope of wasted energy and time. One breath at time I began to pray/talk to God. I asked for a sign that things would be OK if I allowed it. I am usually the biggest reason things don’t work out. I am truly my own worst enemy. I just sat looking at the night sky, once again emptying my head one thought at a time. Suddenly, I heard this soft whispered whooshing sound. I looked straight in front of me and I saw an owl fly over the grassy part of the yard to a branch on a tree that was 30 feet in front of me. It sat on a branch that was nearly perfectly straight on our tree that I had never noticed before. It was directly in front of me looking me straight in the eye. We watched one another for about 10 minutes, when a rustling sound back by the bayou got the owl’s attention. A minute later the owl mad a great sweeping gesture with its wings and flew away. I knew then, as I know now that moment was miraculous. I have never seen an owl that close before. I certainly never had one look me in the eye before. I wished I had a camera with me. I wished I had some way of capturing that moment so I could show everybody the miracle of it. But that’s the thing about miracles, they are nearly impossible to describe. Even when one has an image and detailed description, it never does the moment justice for the power it holds. Was it a sign from God? Probably, but I am rather dense when it comes to signs sometimes and I am not always sure of the meaning. I think if nothing else, I felt heard. It wasn’t so much about what the owl meant in some symbolic term as it was the opportunity to see the owl and be totally present in the moment. Had I not been awake at that exact time, had I decided to watch TV rather than sit outside, had I not been actively trying to quiet my body and my mind, I would have missed out on an extraordinary event. Any meaning beyond that, for now, is inconsequential for me.
My day was filled to the brim with good, bad, scary, wonderful, exciting, and promising things. I went back to bed being so very grateful for my miracle in the middle of the night. I fell fast asleep, and slept like a baby.