Make a Plan, She Said

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…