Shrew - Out, Fairy Princess - In

            I am pissed off today.  The rainbows and unicorns that were floating around me yesterday have moved on and there’s just a big halo of darkness over my head.  Wrinkled nose, curled lip, worried brow, tensed shoulders, smoke from ears.  Yesterday, fairy princess.  Today, shrew.

            I won’t lie to you, there’s a hormonal component.  But there’s also a reality I don’t like component which is that the building they’re building behind our house is going to be really really big and I Don’t Like It. 

            I don’t like it and I’m a trained fighter and we are able to fight in this part of the world.  There’s a lot of public process to raise concerns about new developments.  Or I could just breathe in and out and let it happen as they intend and get over it.

            There’s a middle way, a third way, that’s not the fighting with the swords and the firebombs and it’s not the laying down, smiling, and taking it, whatever the it is.  At least I’ve heard people say there is some way to continue to take aim, object, and resist while maintaining one’s center.  While continuing to breathe in and out.

            It sounds maybe something like, “Yes, I would like it to be different and I will make all the moves I can to create a more acceptable outcome for myself AND I know I will be ok if it doesn’t turn out how I want it to.”  It feels a little awkward for me to write it like that, feels like a second language, motoring forward without the propulsion of extreme emotion.

            Can I take the actions of a fired up person without actually being a fired up person?  Do I want to?  At this moment, not really.  At this moment I’m staring out the window of my office/guest/playroom at a thicket of huge old trees on the property over our fence.  In the middle of the thicket stands a tall white-tipped pole indicating where the proposed building will stand.  They plan to take down all the trees.  They’ve told me it will be better for me to have “more sky.” 

            What I see now with the poles there is that I will have more building, more building, and more windows.  More Juliette balconies with fancy wrought iron railings.  Less privacy.  Less nature.  Less birds cawing as they are now in the early morning sunrise time.  Less pink sunset lace peaking through pine tree branches as the sun goes down in the late afternoon. 

            I don’t like it.  And I’m glad I have choices about how to proceed and I’m glad that I know that even if I don’t like it I will be ok and my family will be ok.  I can feel how incredibly lucky we are that this is the major challenge we face today.  I am so grateful for this life.  Grateful for this life, grateful for today, even though there is stuff that I don’t like.  Grateful that today there are birds to be heard and trees to admire, and beauty to be experienced and love to be shared.  The dark cloud is lifting again, as it tends to, and I’m feeling much less pissed off than when I started this piece.  And for that I am grateful. 

            The shrew has been heard and now fairy princess can play.  Yay.