one heck of a mixed bag

Today I cried with one friend and I laughed with another.

I cried by myself, lost in my thoughts, and then a small red fox ran through the snow, in front of my car, and I smiled despite myself.

It’s the same red fox who seems to have chosen the end of my parents’ lane as one of his favorite spots to hang out. Sort of like how, unbelievably, Burger King has become that way in nearby Newark, only I give a lot more credit to the fox for his choice because at least the lane is surrounded by trees and there aren’t too many florescent lights to compete with the stars and the moon.

Actually, I think that the fox has chosen the lane as a date spot. Because twice now I’ve seen him cavorting with a black cat there. I know, I know, I thought it was something about the lion and the lamb too, but hey–the fox and the cat kind of works for me.

But what I meant to say was that I saw them when I was sad and suddenly I did feel better. Stupidly and mostly inexplicably better. Did the cat and the fox change anything about the actual shape of my reality?

No.

But they brought some other things to my attention, things that really helped. They surprised me with something good. And thereby reminded me that those kinds of things still happen. Good surprises, I mean. They reminded me of whimsy. The side of life that doesn’t look like math and isn’t so easily erased as equations on the chalkboard, but there they are. The part of life that keeps you laughing at the same knock knock joke you heard ten years ago, but this time it’s your niece who’s saying it and this time you laugh and it’s genuine. It’s playing. It’s innocent fun. I’ll breathe that in, if you don’t mind. And then I remembered that sometimes things don’t make sense in a good way. And it’s like the opposite of getting the wind knocked out of you because suddenly you’re breathing and it’s deep and it’s like your lungs remember they can expand and also that you have all the air you’ll ever  need to say whatever it is you need to say, my dear. And really? A fox and a cat? In real life; this isn’t a cartoon. Okay, then. Makes no sense, but I’ll take it in.

And tonight, I stepped inside to practice music with a friend and then when I stepped back outside hours later, the world was transformed by snow. And here I thought I had grown tired of the winter, but then when I saw that, I realized I was wrong. That an apology was in order. Good thing the snow has a habit of falling on the grateful and the ungrateful alike; good thing I am not exempt from that kind of beauty.

The truth is, nobody is.

And to me, it seemed like all that covering up of the nakedness of winter happened in just a few song’s worth of time. And well, it can happen like that sometimes. Good things coming into your life. They can come and take your breath away just like that in the same way that bad things can come and knock you off your feet just like that.

And like my friend John says, Miracles happen, so why not to me?

Why not, indeed.