Learning from Dog Poop

Visiting this lady

Lisa Hale (aka: Angel on Earth)

last weekend reminded me that the name of my blog insinuates I believe there is good and bad in life. Happy and sad. Incredible, fabulous, fantastic experiences, and things we wouldn't wish on our worst enemies. I also realized I have almost exclusively written about the positive lately. Time to talk about the negative...but not necessarily in a negative way.

This woman?

She either volunteered or was volunteered by her husband (the story is different depending on who you ask :)) to watch my brother and I (ages 2 1/2 & 8) when my mother died suddenly in 1994. Heaven knows my dad-who was left with two young children, a full-time job, and a bucket-load of grief-needed the help. She and her husband honestly saved the lives of a little family whose world had been turned upside-down. Subconsciously, I was learning for the first time that positive things can come from crap (for lack of a better term).

When my dad's brother died my freshman year of college, I learned again, more poignantly this time, the same lesson. My uncle the science teacher, happy and always full of life, who would answer the phone with something like: "Hey sweet girl! Did you know an elephant can fit on the tongue of a blue whale?!" had died. Amidst wrapping my mind around the concept of mortality, I flew to Texas the next summer to help my aunt and cousins make the drive to New Hampshire for our family reunion they had always made with their dad. IT WAS FABULOUS. I had an incredible time with their family and met my aunt for the first time. She had always been in my uncle's shadow (at least from my perspective). I talked to her SO MUCH-her personality came to life for me and I gained a great friend.

In summary, when terrible, almost impossibly difficult things like this happen,

I have always learned more than I would have had God allowed my life to be perfect or simply easy or entirely peaches and roses. ALWAYS! I am so thankful for each experience I have had in life. I learn something from every single one.

Origins

On October 31, 2009 I walked out my door on the 4th floor of an apartment building in Cluj-Napoca, Romania to find dog poop and one kiwi fruit occupying the same 1 square foot space on the landing. Aside from having a strong desire to regurgitate breakfast, I was intrigued. How do two seemingly different objects come to be in such close proximity to each other?? The wonderfully fabulous Sora V., who resides in my top ten favorite people in the entire world list, kindly posed for a picture:

after which, I laughed to myself while the aforementioned Sveta Vasylyeva likely mused on how strange her companion was. Perhaps it was the state of eternal exhaustion I seemed to be functioning in or the two hours I had just spent attempting to create analogies and metaphors tied to scripture stories and religious principles in personal and companion study, but that combination seemed like the perfect example of how nonsensical and purportedly messed up life can seem. I therefore vowed in the elevator ride down that kiwi and dog poop would somehow become my life maxim, motto or mascot, if you will, for putting life events into perspective and proper order. And so it begins...