Day 347
“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” … so said the Dalai Lama.
All I have to say is, “Well, hello Dalai!” That is one really, really astute llama!
I was thinking about something today (not exactly worrying, just thinking) when I came upon that quote. It made me feel better in a que será, será kind of way. (As in Doris Day … whatever will be, will be …)
And yet … something was still nagging at me. Doris Day and her chipper outlook be damned.
And when something nags at me, historically I go for a drive. Something about the wind in my hair with the radio blasting kind of clears my head and brings everything back to center. Well, I wasn’t about to do that today because I wasn’t going to roll my windows down in 20 degree weather or have icy blasts whip through my hair and I still have yet to find a decent radio station here.
Anyway … instead of that, I drove to town to get my mom a pastry. (It’s her 84th birthday. HB, Mom!)
And while out, for whatever reasons my thoughts wandered to a day when Ted was about 3 years old and while driving around we came upon a house that had those fiberglass deer out front. I slowed down the car and pointed them out to Ted … who, of course, in all his 3 years didn’t know about fiberglass (well, he might have cuz he was such a brainy little one … in fact, I think he invented fiberglass!) … anyway … he thought they were REAL. So, there we were looking at the family of (fiberglass) deer and as we drove off he whispered breathlessly … “They’re so still.” He had not a care in the world … just utter amazement at how close he had come to nature.
I still chuckle at that … he was so darn cute and who was I to burst his bubble and tell him they were FAKE?!
Anyway, fast forward to just before last Christmas. While driving past my neighbor’s house I slowed to gawk at the three fat geese that were nibbling his grasses. They were so beautiful and so fat and (it wasn’t until I saw the big red bows around their necks that I realized, like the deer of long ago, they were) … FAKE! (And so still!)
So, fast forward (or go back to) today. I had dropped off said pastry and was on my way home again – still with this thing nagging at me – and as I drove past my neighbor’s house I thought that he had added another goose to his yard. As I got closer I realized it wasn’t a goose … but a very sizeable, very real HAWK sitting atop his fresh kill … an unfortunate squirrel … in the lawn!
I pulled off to the side hoping to snap a picture as he was about six feet from me but the bird flew off (squirrel and all) and I missed my chances of having a photograph in National Geographic! Darn it anyway!
But that brush with nature made me feel how Ted must have felt so close to those (unbeknownst to him – fake) deer … it was so exciting that I found myself breathlessly whispering aloud, “Wow, that was cool.”
And in that moment … when nature gave me a glimpse of something special … all the worries of the day (or week or month) kind of melted away and that nagging something disappeared completely.
And it made me want to thank the hawk (and the squirrel) … for bringing me full circle and back to center. And I realized how very true that quote on worrying is … because when all is said and done … worrying about something doesn’t stop it from happening. I’ll figure things out and change what I can and if I can’t, there’s really no sense in worrying about it. Que será, será.
Yep … that is one smart llama!