The Beauty and Burden of Fate

I drove into town today to get Rolfed. Rolfing is my favorite form of body work, because it makes me feel different in my frame, more in tune with gravity, more erect, expansive. I often experience emotional release (especially when the Rolfer is running 20 minutes behind schedule!) This week we worked on my right hip joint, which has been bothering me.

Afterwards I picked up raw, frozen, ground rabbit, quail and turkey neck at The Healthy Pet in Eugene. I’ve been worrying about how expensive it is feeding nine cats raw meat and organic vegetables and have been toying with the idea of converting their diet to dry kibble made from human-grade meats. But one look at the ingredients and I beg off. Meat meal and grains, among others. I do not want to feed my cats grains.

The shopkeeper suggested I might be interested in the canned food since it has no grains. Each large can was $2.50, and the suggested portion was half a can per 6 to 8 pounds of body weight. That’s about five cans per day, or $12.50. Not to mention how many cans I would have to recycle every week. The raw diet started looking pretty good.

I also stopped by Capella’s Market and picked up a few pounds of whole, ground Rocky chicken. They also had fresh chicken hearts and livers, so I had them grind up a few pounds of those as well. When I got home later the cats and I went into the backyard and I gave them each several fresh chicken hearts.

On my way home I decided to take a scenic back road through the hills southwest of Eugene. These hills are beautiful, fully wooded, each house unique in its architecture, gardens tended with care, each side street a mystery inciting my curiosity. I couldn’t resist and turned onto one, which dead-ended at a barely marked trailhead.

In the middle of this upper-middle class neighborhood was a large forested area with groomed trails carpeted in redwood bark. Today is the first day of spring that feels like spring in Eugene. The sun is unimpeded by cloud cover, the air is warm and pressing, the flowers are in bloom everywhere, their scents faintly carried on the breeze, the apple trees are just now dropping their blossoms, and the birds are calling for mates and building nests. All the stores carry vegetable starts outside for the home gardener. Nature is alive with activity, life, purpose. I had to walk this trail.

Reluctantly, I cut short my walk, disappointed at not being able to fully explore this new treasure. I had frozen meat thawing in the car. I worried about my purse. And I had to pee. I am happiest and most at peace in a wooded setting, and the greatest woods are coastal redwoods. I turned around and got back onto the main road. I arrived at a stop sign the same time a car to the left of me did. But this car tried to take the right of way. Doesn’t everyone know that the car on the right has the right of way?

I’ve been noticing lately how drivers and pedestrians are increasingly self-absorbed, barely noticing others around them. Last week I was at a green light waiting to turn right, cross traffic wanted to turn left into the same lane. We were waiting on pedestrians to cross but they had stopped in the middle of the walk to futz with a cell phone. I honked at them to get them moving, because all traffic had stopped, and they looked at me like I was a crazy gypsy. Not two hours before that, as I was turning right off a main road, a pedestrian stepped off the curb in front of me without even looking.

People are so unaware of their surroundings. They’re hip deep in their own thoughts or carrying on a cell phone conversation that just couldn’t wait or sometimes they’re simply pushy, taking advantage of their advantage. “This is a crosswalk and I’ll take my sweet time getting across.” Why do people stroll through crosswalks in midday lunch hour traffic? I suppose because they can. Because it’s their god-given right.

I continued traveling the back roads on my way home. When I got to the road to turn left toward Crow or turn right toward Veneta, I took an uncustomary left towards Crow. This led me to a back road that I had grown sick of on my many trips to my warehouse in Roseburg and back, a three-hour round trip. I came over a slight rise and there was a dead animal flattened in the road. I figured I would straddle it but as I approached, it stood up! It was a squirrel and I drove right over it, praying, “NO, NO!” I saw it frantically try to get away. I didn’t hear or feel anything. And when I looked in my rearview mirror I saw no flattened carcass.

Maybe it was hit and suffering on the side of the road. I had to turn back. I slowed down looking for a place to turn around. The road was windy and I had to keep driving and then a chipmunk ran right under my tires! Oh, fuck! That one I felt. I found a turnaround and visited the dead chipmunk. I even considered taking it home to feed to my cats, but it was mostly fur. I felt so bad for the little guy. I didn’t find a dead squirrel.

I took a side street for adventure, walked a path for peace, took two lefts for variety when I normally take a right, and slowed down for compassion because a squirrel was in the middle of the road. Had I not slowed down because of the squirrel, I may have been long gone by the time the chipmunk decided to cross the road. That chipmunk died because I wanted to mix it up a little. Or maybe I mixed it up a little because it was that chipmunk’s day to die.

I think about such things. Do you?