REWARDS

's 3:18 a.m.  

Was in bed, lights out, at 10:45 p.m., fulfilling this week's key pledge - asleep at a wiser, healthier, more wholeness-aspiring hour.  

And here I am.  Writing a blog entry at 3:20 a.m.

Awoke around 2:45 a.m.  Don't know if it was toothache or a kitty litter box that needs attention or the fact that Sky (who usually sleeps tucked next to or near me) was nowhere to be sensed.  But something awoke me.  

As mentioned, no Sky.  Sky is & maybe always will be a traumatized kitty.  As a kitten, he was put in the care of a young boy.  The boy probably didn't intend to torture the wee small creature, but he did.  And in spite of all the love that Leslie gave him, all the love that we do, he's remained deeply suspicious of life itself & everything, everyone in it.  But the one thing that he's done from the time he first allowed himself to leave the safety of the darkness under the master bedroom bed has been to sleep with me.  

At one time, plastered between my body & the back of the den couch (where I sleep due to breathing problems if  I don't sleep at least partially sitting up), then later right ON me, which has progressed to right next to me, to curled up at my legs, to finally a bit away from me.  But in the wee small hours of this morning, he wasn't next to me or near me or even atop the end of the couch.  Assumed he was with John (as he's sometimes bold enough to be, on the rare night), but turned on the light, just to check around.

And there he was, on the next cushion over, sound asleep, his arms flung over the edge of the cushion - total slumbers.  And asleep right next to him was Rennie.  Sky was sleeping right next to another cat.  That was an amazing sight to see & filled me with a deep sense of homecoming - it might not seem like much, but it's what I've hoped for ever since we took over Sky's care over three years ago.

There I was, about 30 minutes ago - sitting in a room that is fragrant in ways you really don't want, in the middle of the night, happy as all get out because two cats are sleeping right next to each other.

Seeing that progression in inner confidence gives me a tremendous sense of reward, if that's even the right word.  What I've hoped for - a more confident, at-rest-in-his-fur kitty - is one more step closer.  That is the sort of thing that fills my heart with happiness.  

Much like decorating cookies on Sunday at the New Church Day Craft Fair, where I turned a kid's activity into an opportunity to encourage all ages to have confidence in their choices, to know what they truly wanted & to make the most of being allowed to choose what they wanted, rather than what they felt was allowed.  

So, one little boy chose all little purple candies, when everyone else had chosen an assortment.  One young girl took all four of the few red M&Ms.  And every child who wondered out loud if it was okay to do something was asked, "Who's cookie is it?" and each came up with the answer - often immediately - "Mine."  Whatever they wanted to do with their cookie was okay, as long as it took 12 candies, no more.

Sometimes, none.  One little girl, around 7 years old, admitted to wanting only the gold icing without any of the candies I was using it to anchor.  She dropped her voice & admitted that what she really & truly wanted to do was just criss cross her cookie crown with piped icing.  Will always remember her sense of happiness as she stood next to me, her hands next to mine on the piping bag, and slish-slashed her way back & forth across the cookie with golden butter cream.  It was the sort of moment that's always given me the greatest sense of spiritual homecoming.

The cookie decorating event was over in less than an hour.  Ran out of cookie crowns.  Two of the boys who'd decorated cookies stopped by.  A girl who'd decorated one at the start of the fair was carefully loading up two mini baking cups with unused candies.  The boys stood in from of me, their eyes fairly dancing over the remaining little purple, red, orange & green gumdrops.  They asked if they could have some  & their eyes flew open as I told them to take them all.  As they divided them up on the two little plates, I leaned across the table to share some wise old woman advice - "Always ask.  The answer might be 'No' but you'll never get a 'Yes" if you don't ask. Always ask."  

There I was, trying to get back to sleep, and what I'm wide awake thinking about is the kitty peacefully slumbering at my feet, now curled up right next to Rennie, and empowering kids through cookie decorating.. That sense of whatever it is I feel has always been the reward I've sought in all I do.  And that's wonderful.  But it's time to expand my rewards system to include a similar sense of deep homecoming when I've done something tangible, like not only working on the kitchen on a Monday, but getting it spic & span clean; like not only getting a laptop, but setting it up for actual use & using it to make a success of an awesome business idea.

Rewards are important.   

It dawned on me, stretched out in the dark on the couch, unable to get back to sleep, that the reason I always felt like Mim & Peter personified the "right" way to be wasn't because they were held up as  exemplars of best living practices but because it seemed that whatever it was that they did were behaviors my parents rewarded with praise & admiration (at least, that's what I heard).  It wasn't what my parents said, but the intangible ways they seemed to reward Peter & Mim that drew me to conclude that the two of  them got it right while I chronically got it wrong.  (worth a posting all by itself, since peter & mim seem to have experienced things the other way around - maybe none of us were rewarded & all of us felt unrewardable!)

To only apparently seem to digress - it's never made sense to me when others have ease my frustrations over throwing all sorts of obstacles into the path of doing things that would serve my interests, without any detriment to others.  In most case, with benefits to others.  "Don't beat yourself up over it - it's human nature."   It's human nature to SEE what calls out to be done, to SEE the next best step to getting to a better, wiser way of living, then NOT doing anything to make it so?  It's human nature to see the Promised Land & content yourself with wandering around instead of figuring out how to get across the Jordan and DOING it?  

That's perverted human nature.  And we are capable of better.  We are put here to do better.  

And I don't digress, because what we do in our lives is directly tied to our concept of rewards. It was many years ago that I first heard the concept that the reason we do things that hold us back is because we get some sense of reward from it.  Until we figure out what the reward is, acknowledge then reconfigure it, we're going to keep living in a messy house or blowing our chances to develop prosperous income streams or messing up relationships.  

I tolerate an aromatic house (not in the way people want - in the way that keeps us from having friends over) because of the reward I get seeing a small tuxedo kitty sleeping curled up next to a fluffy marmalade tabby.  

I grew up with a funky sense that the most important rewards would always be beyond my reach, because I could never hope to be even close to Peter & Mim in what I could do.  Turns out, that's right.  I never could be like Peter & Mim and what they appear to process as rewards isn't what I do.  But that's NOT wrong, doesn't make me chronically, hopelessly off kilter - it just makes me me.

Took me until the wee small hours of a Tuesday morning - now 4:14 a.m. - to realize that a key (perhaps THE key) to moving past my apparent human nature to my genuine spiritual on is by first overhauling my rewards system.  

It's all well & good to experience deep happiness in Sky's progress.  What I need to move to is encouraging, nurturing in myself deep happiness in having a spic & span kitchen every Monday, in getting the front yard looking good every Tuesday, in setting up & using the laptop that I purchased five months ago, in making a personal & prosperity-creating success of Cyber Access for the Technically Timid.

We do what we feel rewarded by.  Always has been, always will be.  To change my life, change the reward system in which it's rooted.