Facing reality - squirrel edition

Scratch. Scratch, scratch, scratch, scratch.

Saturday morning, as I entered the kitchen, what sounded like a cat digging in the litter box disoriented me. The cat box was in the basement. This seemed to come from around the corner. Unless Denali was really going to town, there was no way I should have heard this sound. I shrugged my shoulders and set to work picking up breakfast dishes.

Clunk. Something fell somewhere inside the home in which I was alone.

I peeked out onto the three-season porch extending from the kitchen, then took another look. Huh? There it sat, on the wrong side of the window. Its plumed tail ticked rhythmically, conveying its displeasure.

Squirrrrrrrrel!

*#$@!!! This plump little guy must have been pretty adventurous and thorough to find the portal, a small rip in the screen door. I watched him hop onto the dining table, then onto the floor where he knocked over the recycling, as he frantically searched for an exit. His terrified - or were they incensed - beady black eyes momentarily met mine.

"We're going to get you out of here, little guy," I said, mostly to calm myself and prevent a hysterical laughing fit. I've seen Christmas Vacation too many times, and my inner voice started spewing lines. "Where's Eddy, he usually eats these things?"

Truly, the fix was easy. I waited until he moved to the far end of the porch, cracked the kitchen door and started to reach for the door to the outside ... He darted to the floor. Shit. Mission aborted. What if he dashed into the house? Then I'd have a real problem. I could go around back to open the door, but what if he flew right at me and went for the jugular? What if I slipped down the icy stairs as I ran, only to knock my head and suffer a brain injury. Yes, too many movies. Pair that hyperactive imagination, a recent concussion, some brutal head-ice contact a few years back, and a lifelong (and abnormally strong) fear of rabies, and you see why this incident turned me into a quivering nut job.

The flashbacks began. About a month ago, a friend and I took a night mountain bike ride. A large, bumbling raccoon ran up the path toward us before shimmying up the nearest tree. She continued riding. I hit the breaks so hard I nearly did an endo.

"Um," I almost whispered. "I'm afraid of the raccoon."

Correction: Part of me wanted to snuggle with the raccoon in all his cuddly, fatty cuteness. What I feared, however, as I looked at his wide, charcoal eyes staring back at me and his finger-like claws clinging to the tree, was that I might ride past only to have a this blood-thirsty (and certainly rabid) creature leap onto my back and tear at me with his fangs and talons. He was probably a she ready to protect her babies at any cost. I gave him a wide berth as I walked my bike through the woods. By that time, he was watching us cautiously from the tree top, probably wondering what we were doing tearing through the woods with headlights on our helmets on Friday night, in Minnesota, in November. 

"You don't like raccoons?" my riding companion seemed to be reevaluating our friendship.

"I like raccoons. In pictures. I don't like rabies."

My mother's stray-animal warnings and safety-vigilant public schooling meant growing up convinced all animals have rabies. As an adult, experience has taught me that even the sweetest animals will try to kill you if they have people to babies nearby. We're not talking about bears or anything exotic. Ask me about the bird incident, or the cow incident, or the deer incident.

I thought about the photo of grizzly bear tracks that came across my twitter feed that morning and realized my urban "wildlife" problems were pathetic. I follow a woman who lives in Alaska and whose adventures cross paths with real animals. The fact that I am a city slicker no matter how much I love the outdoors stings my pride. It also amuses me.

I giggled as I pulled out my iPhone to capture the moment. I wanted my mother. Not to save me, but to share this experience. We'd laugh at this ridiculousness and work ourselves into breathless, slap-happy tears as we recounted that Christmas Vacation squirrel scene line for line. But she'd never get here in time.

Of course, my husband, Chris, could be relied upon. He was only three blocks away helping our friend with a bathroom remodel. I dialed and redialed his cell. No answer. I called our friend's land line. Chris picked up.

"Yeees?"

"There's a squirrel," I snorted. "On the back porch. He's going nuts; I feel bad."

Oops. I hadn't meant to be punny. I explained my liberation plan and its many problems.

"Just go around the back and prop open the door," he patiently instructed.

"But what if it flies out and bites me?"

"So, you want it to fly out and bite me instead?" he asked. Clearly, I was not getting the sympathy I needed and would be facing this alone.

"Fine. I'll call you when I leave for my rabies shots."

I pulled on my hat, jacket, and boots. Trotted defiantly around the back, all the while cursing myself and Chris for not salting the walkway.

"Breathe, Jenifer, breathe,"I coached myself as I walked just far enough up the stairs to pull the door open. I propped it ajar with a rubber mat, then tore off. Back inside the house, I peered out to find the little guy creeping ever-so-apprehensively toward freedom. Momentarily, he froze at the threshold.

"Dude. Get out there!" I urged. "It's over!"

He scuttled onto the stairs, then dashed across the snowy yard to the lilac bush. I pulled the door shut, examined the hole, and hoped he didn't come back with any friends. Shame followed my relief.

"Worked up over a squirrel, Jen? Really?"

I aspire to be the West Virginia mountain momma John Denver sings about. But, I reluctantly admit my reality more closely resembles Billy Joel's Uptown Girl.

Endings

"You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You could swear, curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go."

The last part of that line whispers through my mind from time to time. It nestled its way in when I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button a few years back. I consider it comforting and useful, especially in recent months when my life seemed riddled with decisions, confrontations, and loss.

I find it so easy to trick myself into holding onto certain things despite knowing full well they must be cut loose. Oh, denial, what a temptress. And yet, finally letting go seems simple compared with what leads up to the act: recognizing - and acknowledging - the true end.

It seems we cling to certain things well past their expiration date in hopes that somehow more time, effort, love or money can revitalize them. Or worse, we may suffer from delusions that somehow the past might be altered, that a relationship's very fabric might be rewoven to change its current texture.  We can only move forward with the wisdom we've gathered and do better - no point in expending precious energy on what can never change. Clutching to something stale, be it a choice we've made, a relationship, or a career, promises to turn us miserable and bitter.

But how do we know what's run its course and must be released and what's worth holding onto, even fighting for? When are we giving up prematurely and when are we wisely letting go?

I wonder because I've also found that just when things seem as difficult and unbearable as they could possibly be - if I immerse myself in the fray rather than resist it - sometimes some pretty spectacular things happen.

There's the fairly painful and uncertain hike to a remote "ghost town" in Colorado last summer that, just as we were about to bail, turned into a delightful afternoon with one of its residents. In the past year I started improving at track racing - and found a deeper appreciation for it - just as my morale hit rock bottom and I considered calling it "over." Throughout the past decade, I've believed in other people's ability to overcome dark struggles (as well as my own), and just when these situations seemed as hopeless as they could be, things started to turn around. Now that I think about it, every one of those turning points followed some sort of surrender.  

Just last month, I spent some time with a dying loved one, someone I wished I'd been closer to. At first I wondered how to make up for lost time. Then, I realized that opportunities could not be recreated. I could only work with the moments remaining. The two days I spent with her allowed me to let go of the dreams for a different relationship and accept it for what it was. The connection in that final visit could not rewrite our history, but appreciating it for what it was brought me peace.

The best I can come up with is that recognizing the end and knowing when to let go comes back to presence, surrender and acceptance - and listening to the hunch otherwise known as intuition. Maybe it comes to a point where we no longer have a say in the matter; we arrive at that place where we can go no further or the moment we can no longer contain that which we wrap tightly in our arms. We must let go and allow the next moment/opportunity/chapter to unfold. The real decision lies in how - or if - we allow ourselves to move on.

Memory

Stinky salmon pate. I hold that pungent, brainy-looking mound responsible for blasting me with grief.

Last Thursday night seemed harmless enough. I stopped by my brother's home to drop off a box spring he'd been storing in my garage and to wish him a happy birthday. We sampled some rabbit stew he and his girlfriend made. And he sent us home with a loot from his garden and some soft cat food snubbed by his finicky feline.

Upon arriving home, I headed straight to the kitchen where I knelt down to scoop the dejected goods into our new kitty's dish. Then, it happened.

Deja vu describes the sensation of feeling you've experienced something before. This was not that. I had absolutely experienced this before. One year ago to the day, as a matter of fact. My vision blurred as nausea and gut-wrenching sorrow swept my body. I staggered a bit as I stood, placed the remaining cat food in the fridge, washed my hands and began making pizza dough.

On precisely that same evening the year prior, I fed my sick cat, Val, some medicinal-strength-odor soft cat food. She would be put to sleep the following day. My experience with loss had, until that point, been minimal. Her death shook me up, but, of course, time healed.

It's funny how a simple moment reaches into memory's depths and elicits emotion so fresh it seems you're experiencing it for the first time.