Not dead, just hurt
Highlights: The sunrises during the past few mornings have been, without exaggeration, spectacular. This morning's was such that not only was the sky illuminated with color, but the faint mist surrounding the house felt infused and vibrant with hues of orange, too. Last night's GNO at Urban Plates was good. The food was reasonably priced and good, in an oddly "mass production" manner wherein the three salmon filets all looked identical, in a processed sort of way. Mom's 2nd chemo visit went smoothly. I wrestled with researching and resolving an issue with her printer, trying to work around the extortion-level locking of its functionality based on page count metrics, unsuccessfully. While at her house, she gasped to find a mouse on her counter behind the sink's faucet. It was struggling, unsuccessfully, to stand, turning over and over instead, clearly hurt. I took it outside and along the side yard where I felt it might have a chance of survival if it could move. I looked on the way out, but it was not there. Tommy is wrestling with the ADU opportunity, workload, lack of income, and difficulty in navigating many moving pieces. I'm letting him make his choices while trying to support and give input. I look forward to seeing Matt/Shiela tomorrow night and visiting Lauren in Sacramento on Saturday.
Insights: The injured and likely dying mouse tonight hit a nerve that's become more prominent than ever. The empathy, compassion and recognition of mortality, fate, impermanence and the complete inability to do anything more than try and avoid what is enviable. I felt so bad for that little guy, as I would for anything I observe, such as an animal on a roadside, the bird in the back yard this summer, the gopher too, my mom's circumstances, and other forms of suffering that I believe we all want to avoid and relieve. Epictetus said, "As you kiss your son good night, whisper to yourself, He may be dead in the morning. Don't tempt fate, you say. By talking about a natural event? Is fate tempted when we speak of grain being reaped?". It's complicated and challenging to live with that consciously; it's habitual to see things "as they are" as if it's how they'll always be. That's perhaps the ultimate delusion. Expanding that level of awareness to everyone, everywhere, is an even more significant challenge. I still remember being devasted by an overseas famine to the point Linda was incapable of relating to it. At the time I felt like the oddball. Now I see it as a gift, if not simply my nature.