This one.. well, it always sounds so easy, doesn’t it? Cause everything in life is so black and white, and kindness is as simply spotted as thinking of a wonderful thought… any merry little thought.
Setting the scene- Sunday afternoon, gray, gloomy, lightly misting rain slowly, oh so slowly melting away the now charmless slushy, muddy snow of downtown Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Trash hasn’t been picked up this week because <insert vague weather excuse here>. It’s chilly and wet and dark and a good day to stay the hell at home.
Except.
The evil day has come. We always think it can’t happen to us, and we hedge our bets against it, but somehow, SOMEHOW it’s happened.
I am out of Rock Star.
I know we have to go out. I don’t want to go out. I’m a junkie and I need my fix before I try to go function out in the world without committing atrocities. But I can’t get my fix until I go out into the world and get it. It’s a seamless Catch 22 and I gremble and mutter as I pull on my Stitch hoodie and bearpaws.
(You start to see how choosing kindness may have a few extra difficulties added to my die rolls today yet?)
We get out to the supermarket, manage to park without incident (which is a pleasant surprise after the last few weeks of holiday parking HELL). In we go, and we see… this.
Wings, tail, horns… and fur?
Now, I love dragons.
All artwork courtesy of Carla Morrow of Dragonlady Art, cross stitch was modified very inexpertly by me to be holding a golden apple instead of a globe, original design Dragon Dreams.
So when I saw that there was a Valentine’s stuffed dragon in with the plethora of unicorns, I really wanted to be excited.
But… look at this poor confused little guy. Yes, he has wings, and a tail, and horns… but fur? And soooo much fur!
Yes, I bought an dragon plushie because I felt sorry for it. I know, I have issues. My issues have issues.
I kept looking at it as we picked up the rest of our groceries.. except the frozen Totino’s pepperoni pizzas BECAUSE THEY WERE COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY SOLD OUT OMG WHY DO PEOPLE THINK THEY GET TO OUTLAZY ME TO THE POINT WHERE I HAVE TO COOK?!? /cough
And I kept trying to figure out what the what the designer was thinking of..
a) Had they never seen a dragon before?
b) Had they decided it was winter and therefore the dragon had to be furry?
c) Did they have a bunch of leftover fur that had to be used and decided what the hell, furry dragons! People like furry things! They’ll buy it!
Now, even as all these thoughts were going through my head, we ended up at the checkout counter. And wouldn’t you know it, both the checker and the bagger made fun of my dragon.
That’s when it hit me- choosing kindness doesn’t mean you have to smile benevolently upon the world as it’s kicking you repeatedly in the shins. It doesn’t mean you can’t sit there and look at this dragon and go wtf mate… why did someone do this to you?
It means you don’t judge people for what they choose to see value in. Not even yourself. There’s so few things in this world that will truly speak to you- and you may not even know why they speak to you- the important thing is that you listen. And you don’t judge yourself for being touched by something. Sometimes you don’t even quantify it. You just accept that voice and let it be what it is.
This has been my moment of Zen.
Curiouser and Curiouser 