First  Make a Plan, She Said

First of all, please meet Marley.

Because until 7:00 this morning, she was all I was going to write about today. Marley, Marley, Marley.

How we met, how she has become part of our family (she is Lila’s 5th birthday present), and the total awesomeness of her beautiful little self.

But at 7:00 this morning, while Lila, Chiquita, Marley and I were walking through the dusty road by the house, something happened which is what I want to write about now.

Still, take a look at this FB post and it will tell you how we met Marley. You’ll understand.

Now, about this morning.

Walking through the still-dry riverbeds, passing many dogs - three of them Chiquita’s puppies, who have become big and loud - it is a lovely morning in the countryside.

The air is still cool, everyone is having a good time and I love, love, love seeing Lila so playful with her new sister. She is even jumping around Chiquita who is wondering what the heck has happened to her usually very calm neighbor.

A few minutes after the second river bed, I see a woman walking towards us. I have never seen her before. She is dressed in semi-fancy colorful layers, beaded earrings matching her beaded necklace, pretty much exactly not the way people dress to walk around this neighborhood. Also, her hair is covered with a headdress of some sort.

Me, I am wearing my friend’s grandma’s nightgown, which I wore to the Women’s Circle in the jungle last night and in which I fell asleep. I threw a small jacket on top of it, put on some rubber boots, brushed neither my hair nor my teeth, and stepped out, twelve paws in tow.

Oh well. It’s not as though I am going to run into anyone, and the dogs sure don’t care.
We pass each other, say good morning, and the pups and I keep walking. I notice she is carrying a stick and I can’t tell whether it is a walking cane or some sort of special staff.
On our way back to the house, I see her again. She is now propped on one of the big stones in the middle of the riverbed, her stick by her side, sitting straight up with a book on her lap.

I recognize the book: You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, in Spanish.

It is possible that this book saved my life 33 years ago.

So I tell her. From the dusty road all the way to her throne/stone, I tell her.

She seems surprised that I would even know the book and well, of course, it’s a matter of seconds before I am sitting in the sand in front of her, the pups playing by my side and she and I talking. Well, really she is talking.

She is telling me about how low she had been feeling, how she couldn’t seem to get herself out of bed, nor remember what the point of her life was.

The whole time she is holding the book.

Then she tells me how she had had the book at home for a while but how this time, it sort of threw itself at her. Same with a small Al-Anon book she had.

I know what she is talking about. This Louise Hay book tends to do that. Throw itself off the shelf into someone’s path.

She is animated, excited to be sitting here on this rock. I notice that she is actually sitting on a small yellow piece of cloth, her white pants out of dust’s way. She is prepared.

“I do this every day now,” she says. “You see this plant by my feet? It used to be tiny when I started, but now it is a full-grown plant.”

This is her spot. She walks from her house to our neighborhood and sits on the rock. Well, on the towel on the rock.

Then she says something that sparks brightly for me.

She tells me that a few weeks ago when she was feeling so low, a good friend had told her to “make a plan.”

Make a plan. I raise an eyebrow, signaling that I would like to know more about the plan part.

“A plan,” she said. “Any plan. Read a book, take a daily walk, go to a class. Just make a plan.”

I ask her if dressing as though she was going to a party was part of the plan.

“It is”! She says. “I get up, I put on my prettiest clothes and jewelry, I do my hair, I take my book and I come sit on the rock. And now, I can feel the gratitude, I can feel… me.”

Well. That’s pretty good stuff for not yet 7:30 in the morning, in a dry riverbed by a dusty road.

Then she says that soon she will walk home, put on different clothes, take off her shoes, and go walk barefoot in her garden. This too is part of the plan.

So there you go. A plan. Make a Plan.

Today, I invite you to be open to connections in unlikely places, I invite you to notice synchronicities. I invite you to notice … invitations. And then maybe to Make a Plan.

This life…

He was almost sitting on top of me.

I had the flu or some kind of something that wouldn’t let me get off the couch and my partner was almost sitting on top of me. So sweet, really. Rubbing my shoulders, his fingers through my curls, looking into my eyes for signs of what I may need next. Very … present.

Me, I badly wanted him to do the dishes, which I could see piling up out of the corner of my eye. Throw away my Kleenex and old tea bags, straighten out the pile of books on the coffee table. Create what I needed: an orderly environment where I could heal.

Then sit next to me. No talking, maybe one hand on my arm. Stay with me as I dozed in and out of sleep. Very… present.

It was the early months of our relationship and eventually, over the years, we synched and he would know just what to do if I got sick. I too would know just what to do if he felt bad: sit almost on top of him, run my fingers through his hair, bore my eyes into him.
Definitely not do the dishes.

It took time. It took asking, and it took speaking up. It took being ok with giving something we didn’t want nor understood. It took generosity and it took vulnerability, and it took humility. Also, it took love.

You see, none of us come with an owner’s manual and without one, the best heart-guided thing we often do is: to treat others as one would want to be treated by them.

Ugh.

As time passes, I have tried over and over to remember this. To pay attention to what someone might want or need, independently of what I would want or need. Then to give them that. Even - or especially - when it seems to make no sense to me.

Writing this article, and because words are fun, I tried to think up for a name for this, for this adjusted Golden Rule. for “my” rule. “What could be better than gold?”, I asked myself. Well… platinum! Platinum is worth more than gold. I will call it The Platinum Rule! Then for good measure, I did a quick Google search and read: “As opposed to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," as the golden rule states, the platinum rule asks you to "do unto others, wherever possible, as they would want to be done to them." Ha! And there I thought I was so innovative. Platinum Rule indeed.

Yesterday came with a great opportunity for me to practice this.

I had committed to taking my neighbor’s pup to the vet to get her spayed.

I fell in love with this girl in the fall of 2022 when she was just a few weeks old, living in the same barrio as we do along with her baby sister. They played and played as puppies do, she was the shiest one of the two, the lighter colored one, the smaller one too, and seemed to follow her sister wherever she went, happy to be in the background, her white coat often covered in red dirt.

Chiquita and her sweet sister, in the fall of 2022

They were both getting bigger and when I came back from a short trip to the city last summer, as I was walking up the dusty road toward my home, a neighbor asked me to follow her to the back of her house where the bigger sister was laying under a tree, sleeping peacefully. Except she wasn’t sleeping. She had died. Just like that, under a tree. I still don’t know what happened. A scorpion? A snake? Poison? I don’t know but it shook me up and my heart hurt to see the little sister day after day sitting on the edge of the road, without her playmate.

As I walked by, I would stop and pet her and she would roll onto her back so I could rub her belly. Before I knew that her family had named her Güera (White Girl) I started calling her Chiquita.

Chiquita grew and settled into her own sweet personality. She goes on daily walks with Lila and me and most days, and whether I am coming home by quad or by car, she races me to my house and meets me there as I arrive. Some belly rubs, a little food (in this exact order of importance for her) and she goes back home, across the field. A good life.

Last October, as I was coming back from another trip to the city, Lila and I took a walk, and whereas Chiquita always bounces to join us as we pass her house, this time she showed up with two male dogs, one on each side of her. She seemed bothered by them and they wouldn’t let me get close enough to pet her. They walked with us across the rivers, down the muddy roads, one always flanking her whether she stopped to pee or sniff something.

I did not like it one bit.

I recognized this energy, this possessiveness, this invasion. I knew I was taking it more personally than was necessary, these are dogs after all. Still. I did not like it.

And I was pretty sure she was about to get pregnant if she wasn’t already.

Sure enough, sixty-three days later six puppies arrived, and as much as I love puppies, I resented these guys. She seemed overwhelmed by them and quickly started to get really skinny, feeding all of them on an already thin frame.

I vowed to keep her stocked in calories and I vowed to do whatever I could so this would be her last litter. I told her so.

Now, the pups are almost four months old, they are beautiful, three have new homes and I am hoping the other three will get to the free spay/neuter clinic this weekend. Then find forever homes.

A couple of weeks ago I mustered the courage to talk with Chiquita’s mom and ask her if it would be okay for me to take her to the local vet and get her spayed (there is a wonderful organization in the village that makes sure that all the sterilizations are free). I don’t know why I was so nervous about it, but I was. Would she be offended? Would she send me away and if so, what would I do? I had promised.

But no, just as my friends had told me she would, the lady was fine with it. Which made me wish I had asked six months ago.

So yesterday, off we went, into my car at 6:45 am and over the bumpy roads towards Dr Julio’s office. Chiquita had never been on a leash before and her first car ride had her shaking. I kept one hand on her, sang to her, and asked her to please trust me, that we were going to have a couple of “adventure days,” and then all would be back to normal.

I stayed with her until she got drowsy from the calming, pre-operation shot and then went home to prepare her a soft nest of blankets to come back to. She had never spent a night at my house - or any indoor house - always preferring to go back to her place to sleep and I was really hoping she would hang out long enough to heal a bit and get her first day of meds.

Thus the soft blankets.

At noon I picked her up and my ego got a blow. I thought for sure she would be so happy to see me, ready to leave the clinic. But no, she took one look at me and turned her head the other way, wouldn’t even look at me. “She hates me,” I thought. “I betrayed her and she will never come to visit us again.”

Then I remembered that even if that was the case, it didn’t matter. No new puppies roaming around mattered. No “accidental litters” mattered.

Arriving at home, I carried her into the living room where a friend was waiting and I plopped her onto the couch. There she stayed between us for a few hours. All three of us napped, petting her, talking to her, and telling her that it was going to be ok. I started to think the night would be easy after all, she would either be on the couch or on the fluffy blanket nest I had prepared for her.

Just the way I would want it for myself.

Except, not.

As soon as she felt strong enough to get up, Chiquita got off the couch and made her way into the bushes outside of my studio. Under the palms. On the dirt. Where I certainly could not pet her or keep an eye on her.

Where SHE was comfortable.

Because you see, The Platinum Rule.

Whew.

At dusk I managed to crawl back there and give her her two nighttime pills and then as night fell I had to remind myself that she was doing just what she needed to do, just what worked for her. The blankets remained untouched and we all went to sleep the way we wanted to: Lila, Tiji, and I under the mosquito net, and Chiquita a few feet away, in the dirt. I prayed that the antibiotics would take care of any potential dirt coodies.

It took some mental gymnastics for me to stay aligned with what SHE wanted, what was comfortable and familiar to her. To stay away from what I thought would be best because this was what I would want, or what my girls would want. To not insist that she slept in the soft crate I had borrowed for her. To stay away from The Golden Rule and instead slip into The Platinum Rule.

This takes work.

In human relationships, it takes curiosity, which can often be the opposite of judgment.

It takes work too, to stick by someone who is choosing a different road than the one we would take. To stand by even when that path makes no sense to us.

To not say: “Well, I made you a bed and blankets and you are choosing to sleep in the dirt, so if your stitches get infected, I don’t want to hear about it.”

It takes work to get up and do the dishes when if it were us, we would want to be held.

By morning, she had made her way into the kitchen where she ate a whole bowl of food as soon as I got up.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before she would want to walk across the field to her home and her three pups.

When she did, I sent her a bunch of love and told her I would be bothering her twice a day to give her pills for a short while. She was slow moving but her tail was wagging.

We had done it.

Today, I invite us to choose the harder work of connecting authentically with the beings in our lives to discover how they would want to be treated.

And then with love, away from fear, to do just that.

We can do this.

This life….

Deeply asleep under my mosquito net, I am having a delicious dream in swirly colors of purple.

I have encountered a piece of art by one of my favorite artists, a piece I didn’t know existed. It is hanging sideways and created by the same woman who painted “The Dance of Joy,” even though in my dream it is signed by someone else (because you know how dreams are) and as I am dreaming, I am making a mental note to let my friend Julianna know about this because she too loves “The Dance of Joy.”

And then, I hear a sound. Not in my dream. A sound that is odd enough that I reluctantly bring my consciousness back to under the mosquito net, away from the yummy swirly purple.

What IS this sound?

It comes from the bathroom but it is not familiar. It kind of sounds like dripping water, but less organized.

Is Lila doing something strange? Is she drinking out of the toilet? But no. This is something else. In the dark, I ask Lila what she is doing. She sighs as though I just woke her up. Maybe she too was having a good dream. Tiji is right next to me, her little ears pointed up.

What the heck is this?

No way to ignore it, I walk into the bathroom hoping whatever / whoever I am going to find there is not going to be too far outside my re-arranged scale of normal.
The little brick openings at the top of the bathroom wall are glowing bright orange.
And the sound? It’s not water, it’s … fire! Fire that is crackling loudly and has to be mighty close to my house.

What the heck? is right.

I swing my pink robe over my shoulders as if it were a superhero cape, look for my power rubber boots but can’t find them, and settle for flip-flops. Then I call Lila to please come with me and we make our way through the yard and to the back of the house. Yup, I can see flames and they are tall.

My first thought is: “I need to call Rai.”

Rai is my friend and my neighbor. He lives across the field from me and over the past few months since he moved into his jungly RV, he and I have marveled at “the way things are over here.” Often in awe and gratitude and sometimes in disbelief and … less awe. He is from Spain and I like him very much. We have had some mini adventures together but never in the middle of the night. As I see the flames getting closer to my house, I am thinking tonight might be our first.

But before I can call him, I hear him. I am on one side of my fence and there he is, right on the outside, followed by his pup Ita. It’s as though he has appeared out of nowhere, kinda like this fire. For some reason, we both start laughing. Seeing him, I immediately feel better and find myself clicking into “This is just another adventure” mode. I can’t remember exactly what we say although for some reason I feel that it is important for me to know what time it is; so I ask him and he is kind enough to answer even though I can tell he thinks the question is irrelevant, which it is. It is 2:30 am, the field is ablaze and I have now become aware that the flames are traveling scarily close to my two gas tanks.

I hop over to my garden hose, begging it to not come un-hooked from the spigot as it often does, turn it on, and hand it to Rai over the fence. We can hear the sound of two men talking. I think they too are trying to control this fire which is moving towards my back wall. Did they start the fire? At 2 in the morning? And if so… why?

The water helps and it seems that we are making our way out of the danger zone. So we share: We start to tell The Story of The Fire because - as I am convinced - when things are a little scary telling the story is often helpful. Rai tells me how he was at home, listening to music when he saw the flames. He said they were big and they were close to my house, so in the dark and on foot, he walked across the field to come get a closer look. Did I mention how much I like this guy?

I tell him that I was dreaming, that I woke up because of the sound.

We are laughing again now and we conclude that someone must have been clearing the land and say that good-thing-it-wasnt-in-the-middle-of-the-day. Somehow, Gratitude has shown up.

A few minutes later, things are under control, the two men are taking over the soaking, and Rai and Ita make their way back home across the field. Lila and I walk into our smokey house, Tiji is on the bed wondering if we could please get back to regular programming.
I know there is no way I am going to sleep so I grab my keyboard to write. Because as I said, Telling the Story helps.

Before I start writing though, I send Rai a message saying that we should always have our passports packed and ready in case of emergency, the titles of the lands, too. I guess the adrenaline is still running through me and I’m trying to pre-organize the potential next time. Grabbing control where I can.

I still marvel at how we both showed up at the same time, me from a deep sleep and him from a quiet late night at home.

Seconds later I get a message from Rai: “Don’t worry. We’re protected.”

Yeah, I think he’s right.

This life…